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A   HISTORY   OF   THE   INQUISITION 

Vol.  II. 


WORKS    BY   THE   SAME   AUTHOR. 

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(ii) 


A  HISTORY  OP 


THE    INQUISITION 


OP 


THE    MIDDLE    AGES. 


BY 

HENRY   CHAPvLES   LEA,   LL.D. 


IN  THREE   VOLUMES. 

Vol.  II. 


Neto  gorJt 
THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1922 

All  rights  reserved 


PBIDTED  IM  THX  UNITID  BTATIS  Of  AiaXIOA 


Copyright,  1887,  by  Harper  &  Brothers. 


First  published  elsewhere.     Reprinted  September,  igog. 


AU  righ*8  reserved. 


Berwick  &  Smith  Co.,  Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


BX 

nil' 

LH(p 

\ni 

Y  2 

CONTENTS. 


BOOK  II.— THE  INQUISITION  IN  THE  SEVERAL  LANDS  OF 

CHRISTENDOM. 

Chapter  I. — Langukdoc. 

Obstacles  to  Establishing  the  Inquisition 1 

Progress  and  Zeal  of  the  Dominicans 6 

First  Appointment  of  Inquisitors. — Tentative  Proceedings     ....  8 

Popular  Resistance 12 

Position  of  Count  Raymond 14 

Troubles  at  Toulouse. — ilixpulsion  of  the  Inquisition 16 

Its  Return  and  Increasing  Vigor 21 

Suspended  from  1238  to  1241 24 

Condition  of  the  Country. — Rising  of  Trencavel 26 

Connection  between  Religion  and  State-craft 26 

Pierre  Cella's  Activity  in  1241-1242 30 

Heretic  Stronghold  of  Montsegur 34 

Massacre  of  Avignonet. — Its  Unfortunate  Influence 35 

Count  Raymond's  Last  Effort. — Triumph  of  the  Inquisition  .     .     .     .  38 

Raymond  Reconciled  to  the  Church 40 

Fall  of  Montsegur. — Heresy  Defenceless 42 

Increased  Activity  of  the  Inquisition 44 

Raymond's  Persecuting  Energy. — His  Death 40 

Desperation  of  the  Heretics. — Intercourse  with  Lombardy     .     .     .     .  49 

Supremacy  of  Inquisition. — It  Attacks  the  Count  of  Foix     ....  52 

Death  of  Alphonse  and  Jeanue  in  1273 50 

Rise  of  the  Royal  Power. — Appeals  to  the  King 57 

Popular  Discontent. — Troubles  at  Carcassonne 58 

Philippe  le  Bel  Intervenes. — His  Fluctuating  Policy 62 

Renewed  Troubles  at  Carcassonne. — Submission  in  1299 67 

Prosecutions  at  Albi,  1299-1300 71 

Inquisitorial  Frauds. — Case  of  Castel  Fabri 72 


1325176 


vi  CONTENTS. 

Frcre  Bernard  Dolicicux 75 

Renewed  Troubles. — Philippe  Sends  Jean  de  Pequigny 77 

Philippe  Tries  to  Reform  the  Inquisition 79 

Troubles  cat  Albi. — Conflict  between  Church  and  State 82 

Philippe  Visits  Languedoc. — His  Plan  of  Reform 86 

Despair  at  Carcassonne. — Treasonable  Projects 88 

Appeal  to  Clement  V. — Investigation 92 

Abuses  Recognized. — Reforms  of  Council  of  Vienna 94 

Election  of  John  XXII 98 

The  Inquisition  Triumphs. — Fate  of  Bernard  Delicieux 99 

Recrudescence  of  Heresy. — Pierre  Autier 104 

Bernard  Gui  Extirpates  Catharism 107 

Case  of  Limoux  Noir 108 

Results  of  the  Triumph  of  the  Inquisition 109 

Political  Effects  of  Confiscation 110 

Chapter  II. — France. 

Inquisition' Introduced  in  1233  by  Frere  Robert  le  Bugre     ....  113 

Opposed  by  the  Prelates. — Encouraged  by  St.  Louis 115 

Robert's  Insane  Massacres  and  Punishment 116 

Inquisition  Organized.— Its  Activity  in  1248 117 

Slender  Records  of  its  Proceedings 120 

Vrt'is  Auto  de  fe  in  ISIO. — Marguerite  la  Porete 123 

Gradual  Decadence. — Case  of  Hugues  Aubriot 125 

The  Parlement  Assumes  Superior  Jurisdiction 130 

The  University  of  Paris  Supplants  the  Inquisition 135 

Moribund  Activity  during  the  Fifteenth  Century 138 

Attempt  to  Resuscitate  it  in  1451 140 

It  Falls  into  utter  Discredit 144 

The  French  Waldenses. — ^Their  Number  and  Organization  .     .     .     .  145 

Intermittent  Persecution. — Their  Doctrines 147 

Francois  Borel  and  Gregory  XI 152 

Renewed  Persecutions  in  1432  and  1441 157 

Protected  by  Louis  XL — Humiliation  of  the  Inquisition  .     .     .  158 

Alternations  of  Toleration  and  Persecution 159 

Chapter  III. — The  Spanish  Peninsula. 

Aragon. — Unimportance  of  Heresy  there 162 

Episcopal  and  Lay  Inquisition  Tried  in  1233 163 

Papal  Inquisition  Introduced. — Navarre  Included     .     .     .     .     .  165 

Delay  in  Organization 167 


CONTENTS.  vii 

Pupe 

Greater  Vigor  in  the  Fourteenth  Century 1G9 

Dispute  over  the  Blood  of  Christ 171 

Nicolas  Eymerich 174 

Separation  of  Majorca  and  Valencia 177 

Decline  of  Inquisition 178 

Resuscitation  under  Ferdinand  the  Catholic 179 

Castile. — Inquisition  not  Introduced  there 180 

Cathari  in  Leon 181 

Independent  Legislation  of  Alonso  the  Wise 183 

Persecution  for  Heresy  Unknown 184 

Case  of  Pedro  of  Osnia  in  1479 187 

Portugal. — No  Effective  Inquisition  there 188 

Chapter  IV. — Italy. 

Political  Conditions  Favoring  Heresy 191 

Prevalence  of  Unconcealed  Catharisra 192 

Development  of  the  Waldenses 194 

Popular  Indifference  to  the  Church 19c. 

Gregory  XI.  Undertakes  to  Suppress  Heresy 199 

Gradual  Development  of  Inquisition 201 

Rolando  da  Cremona 202 

Giovanni  Schio  da  Vicenza 20o 

St.  Peter  Martyr 207 

He  Provokes  Civil  War  in  Florence 210 

Death  of  Frederic  II.  in  1250. — Chief  Obstacle  Removed     .     .     .     .  213 

Assassination  of  St.  Peter  Martyr. — L^se  Made  of  it 214 

Rainerio  Saccone 218 

Triumph  of  the  Papacy. — Organization  of  the  Inquisition    .     .     .     .  220 

Heresy  Protected  by  Ezzelin  and  Uberto 223 

Ezzelin  Prosecuted  as  a  Heretic. — His  Death 224 

Uberto  Pallavicino 228 

The  Angevine  Conquest  of  Naples  Revolutionizes  Italy 231 

Triumph  of  Persecution 233 

Sporadic  Popular  Opposition 237 

Secret  Strength  of  Heresy. — Case  of  Armanno  Pongilupo    .     .     .     .  239 

Power  of  the  Inquisition. — Papal  Interference 242 

Naples. — Toleration  Under  Normans  and  Hohenstaufens     ....  244 

The  Inquisition  Under  the  Angevines 245 

Sicily 248 

Venice. — Its  Independence 249 

Inquisition  Introduced  in  1288,  under  State  Supervision    .     .     .  251 


Viii  CONTENTS.  ^ 


Decadence  of  Inquisition  in  Fourteenth  Century 253 

Disappearance  of  the  Cathari. — Persistence  of  the  Waldenses  .     .     .  254 

Remnants  of  Catharism  in  Corsica  and  Piedmont 255 

Persecution  of  the  Waldenses  of  Piedmont 259 

Decline  of  the  Lombard  Inquisition 269 

Venice. — Subjection  of  Inquisition  to  the  State 273 

Tuscany. — Increasing  Insubordination. — Case  of  Piero  di  Aquila  .     .  275 

Continued  Troubles  in  Florence 280 

Tommasino  da  Foligno 281 

Decline  of  Inquisition  in  Central  Italy 282 

The  Two  Sicilies. — Inquisition  Subordinate  to  the  State 284 

Chapter  V. — The  Slavic  Cathari. 

Efforts  of  Innocent  III.  and  Honorius  III.  East  of  the  Adriatic      .     .  290 

The  Mendicant  Orders  Undertake  the  Task 293 

Bloody  Crusades  from  Hungary 294 

Revival  of  Catharism 298 

Endeavors  of  Boniface  VIII,  and  John  XXII 299 

Fruitlessness  of  the  Work 301 

Reign  of  Stephen  Tvrtko 303 

Catharism  the  State  Religion 305 

Advance  of  the  Turks 306 

•Confusion  Aggravated  by  Persecution 307 

The  Cathari  Aid  the  Turkish  Conquest 313 

Disappearance  of  Catharism 314 

Chapter  VI. — Germany. 

Persecution  of  Strassburg  Waldenses  in  1212 316 

Spread  of  Waldensianism  in  Germany 318 

Mystic  Pantheism. — The  Amaurians  and  Ortlibenses  .     .     .     .     .     .  319 

Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit  or  Beghards. — Luciferans 323 

Conrad  of  Marburg. — His  Character  and  Career 325 

Gregory  XL  Vainly  Stimulates  him  to  Persecution 329 

Gregory  Commissions  the  Dominicans  as  Inquisitors 333 

The  Luciferan  Heresy 334 

Conrad's  Methods  and  Massacres 336 

Antagonism  of  the  Prelates 338 

Assembly  of  Mainz. — Conrad's  Defeat  and  Murder 340 

Persecution  Ceases. — The  German  Church  Antagonistic  to  Rome  .     .  342 

The  Reaction  Keeps  the  Inquisition  out  of  Germany  .     .     .     .     .     .  346 

Waldenses  and  Inquisition  in  Passau ,     ,     ,     .  347 


CONTENTS,  ix 

Growth  of  Heresy. — Virtual  Toleration 348 

The  Beguines,  Beghanls,  and  Lollards 350 

The  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit 354 

Tendency  to  Mysticism. — Master  Eckart 358 

John  of  Eysbroek,  Gerard  Groot,  and  the  Brethren  of  the  Common 

Life 360 

John  Tauler  and  the  Friends  of  God 362 

Persecution  of  the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit 367 

Antagonism  between  Louis  of  Bavaria  and  the  Papacy 377 

Subservience  of  Charles  iV. — The  Black  Death 378 

Gregarious  Enthusiasm. — The  Flagellants 380 

Clement  VL  Condemns  Them. — They  Become  Heretics 383 

Attempts  to  Introduce  the  Inquisition. — Successful  in  1369     .     .     .  385 

Persecution  of  Flagellants  and  Beghards. — The  Dancing  Mania    .     .  390 

Beghards  and  Beguines  Protected  by  the  Prelates 394 

Speedy  Decline  of  the  Inquisition 395 

The  Waldenses. — Their  Extension  and  Persecution 396 

Renewed  Persecution  of  the  Beghards 401 

William  of  Hilderniss,  and  the  Men  of  Intelligence 405 

The  Flagellants. — The  Brethren  of  the  Cross 406 

Triumph  of  the  Beghards  at  Constance 409 

Renewed  Persecution 411 

Hussitism  in  Germany. — Coalescence  with  Waldenses 414 

Gregory  of  Heimburg 417 

Hans  of  Niklaushausen 418 

John  von  Ruchrath  of  Wesel 420 

Decay  of  the  Inquisition. — John  Reuchlin 423 

Its  Impotence  in  the  Case  of  Luther         425 

Chapter  VII. — Bohemia, 

Independence  of  Bohemian  Church. — Waldensianism 427 

Inquisition  Introduced  in  1257. — Revived  by  John  XXII 428 

Growth  of  Waldensianism. — John  of  Pima 430 

Conditions  Favoring  the  Growth  of  Heresy. — Episcopal  Inquisition  .  433 

The  Precursors  of  Huss 436 

Wickliff  and  Wickliffitism 438 

John  Huss  Becomes  the  Leader  of  Reform 444 

Progress  of  the  Revolution. — Rupture  with  Rome 445 

Convocation  of  tl>e  Council  of  Constance 453 

Motives  Impelling  Huss's  Presence 455 

His  Reception  and  Treatment 457 


X  CONTENTS. 

His  Arrest. — Question  of  the  Safe-conduct 460 

Communion  in  both  Elements 471 

The  Trial  of  Huss, — Illustration  of  the  Inquisitorial  Process     .     .     .  473 

Exceptional  Audiences  Allowed  to  Huss 484 

Extraordinary  Efforts  to  Procure  Recantation 486 

The  Inevitable  Condemnation  and  Burning 490 

Indignation  in  Bohemia 494 

Jerome  of  Prague. — His  Trial  and  Execution 495 

Chapter  VIII. — The  Hussites. 

Inquisitorial  Methods  Attempted  in  Bohemia 606 

Increasing  Antagonism. — Fruitless  Threats  of  Force 608 

Parties  Form  Themselves. — Calixtins  and  Taborites 611 

Sigismund  Succeeds  to  the  Throne. — Failure  of  Negotiations  .     .     .  614 

Crusade  Preached  in  1420. — Its  Repulse 616 

Religious  Extravagance. — Pikardi,  Chiliasts 617 

The  Four  Articles  of  the  Calixtins 619 

Creed  of  the  Taborites 622 

Failure  of  Repeated  Crusades. — The  Hussites  Retaliate 526 

Efforts  to  Reform  the  Church. — Council  of  Siena 627 

Council  of  Basle. — Negotiation  with  the  Hussites  a  Necessity  .     .     .  530 

The  Four  Articles  the  Basis. — Accepted  as  the  "  Compactata  "    .     .  533 

The  Taborites  Crushed  at  Lipan 636 

Difficulties  Caused  by  Rokyzana's  Ambition 636 

Insincere  Peace. — Sigismund's  Reactionary  Reign  and  Death    .     .     .  638 

The  Calixtins  Secure  Control  under  George  Podiebrad 541 

Rome  Disavows  the  Compactata. — Giacorao  della  Marca  in  Hungary.  642 
The  Use  of  the  Cup  the  Only  Distinction. — Capistrano  Sent  as  In- 
quisitor       546 

His  Projected  Hussite  Crusade  Impeded  by  the  Capture  of  Constan- 
tinople        551 

Efforts  to  Resist  the  Turks. — Death  of  Capistrano  at  Belgrade     .     .  552 

Steady  Estrangement  of  Bohemia. — Negotiations  and  Attacks  .     .     .  555 

The  Compactata  Maintained  in  Spite  of  Rome 559 

The  Bohemian  Brethren  Arise  from  the  Remains  of  the  Taborites     .  561 

Their  Union  with  the  "Waldenses 664 

Their  Growth  and  Constancy  under  Persecution 666 

Appendix  of  Documents 669 


THE   INQUISITION. 


BOOK  11. 

THE   INQUISITION  IN  THE  SEVERAL  LANDS   OF  CHRISTENDOM. 


CHAPTEE    I. 

LANGUEDOO. 


The  men  who  laid  the  foundations  of  the  Inquisition  in  Langue- 
doc  had  before  them  an  apparently  hopeless  task.  The  whole  or- 
ganization and  procedure  of  the  institution  were  to  be  developed 
as  experience  might  dictate  and  without  precedents  for  guidance. 
Their  uncertain  and  undefined  powers  were  to  be  exercised  under 
peculiar  difficulties.  Heresy  was  everywhere  and  all  -  pervading. 
An  unknown  but  certainly  large  portion  of  the  population  was 
addicted  to  Catharism  or  Waldensianism,  while  even  the  orthodox 
could  not,  for  the  most  part,  be  relied  upon  for  sympathy  or  aid. 
Practical  toleration  had  existed  for  so  many  generations,  and  so 
many  families  had  heretic  members,  that  the  population  at  large 
was  yet  to  be  educated  in  the  holy  horror  of  doctrinal  aberrations. 
National  feeling,  moreover,  and  the  memory  of  common  wrongs 
suffered  during  twenty  years  of  bitter  contest  with  invading  sol- 
diers of  the  Cross,  during  which  Catholic  and  Catharan  had  stood 
side  by  side  in  defence  of  the  fatherland,  had  created  the  strongest 
bonds  of  sympathy  between  the  different  sects.  In  the  cities  the 
magistrates  were,  if  not  heretics,  inchned  to  toleration  and  jealous 
of  their  municipal  rights  and  liberties.  Throughout  the  country 
many  powerful  nobles  were  avowedly  or  secretly  heretics,  and 
Raymond  of  Toulouse  himself  was  regarded  as  little  better  than  a 
II.— 1 


2  LANGUEDOC. 

heretic.  The  Inquisition  was  the  symbol  of  a  hated  foreign  dom- 
ination which  could  look  for  no  cordial  support  from  any  of  these 
classes.  It  was  welcomed,  indeed,  by  such  Frenchmen  as  had  suc- 
ceeded in  |)hinting  themselves  in  the  land,  but  they  were  scattered, 
and  were  themselves  the  objects  of  detestation  to  their  neighbors. 
The  popular  feeUng  is  voiced  by  the  Troubadours,  who  delight  in 
expressing  contempt  for  the  French  and  hostility  to  the  friars  and 
their  methods.  As  Guillem  de  Montanagout  says:  "Now  have 
the  clerks  become  inquisitors  and  condemn  men  at  their  pleasure. 
I  have  naught  against  the  inquests  if  they  would  but  condemn  er- 
rors with  soft  words,  lead  the  wanderers  back  to  the  faith  without 
wrath,  and  allow  the  penitent  to  find  mercy."  The  bolder  Pierre 
Cardinal  describes  the  Dominicans  as  disputing  after  dinner  over 
the  quality  of  their  wines :  "  They  have  created  a  court  of  judg- 
ment, and  whoever  attacks  them  they  declare  to  be  a  Waldensian ; 
they  seek  to  penetrate  into  the  secrets  of  all  men,  so  as  to  render 
themselves  dreaded."* 

The  lands  which  Raymond  had  succeeded  in  retaining  were, 
moreover,  drained  by  the  enormous  sums  exacted  of  him  in  the 
pacification.  To  enable  him  to  meet  these  demands  he  was  au- 
thorized to  levy  taxes  on  the  subjects  of  the  Church,  in  spite  of 
their  immunities,  and  this  and  the  other  expedients  requisite  for 
the  discharge  of  his  engagements  could  not  fail  to  excite  wide- 
spread discontent  with  the  settlement  and  hostility  to  all  that  rep- 
resented it.  That  it  was  hard  to  extort  these  payments  from  a 
population  exhausted  by  twenty  years  of  war  is  manifest  when,  in 
1231,  two  years  after  the  treaty,  the  Abbey  of  Citeaux  had  not  as 
yet  received  any  part  of  the  two  thousand  marks  which  were  its 
share  of  the  plunder,  and  it  was  forced  to  agree  to  a  settlement 
under  Avhich  Eaymond  promised  to  pay  in  annual  instalments  of 
two  hundred  marks,  giving  as  security  his  revenues  from  the 
manor  of  Marmande.f 

The  Inquisition,  it  is  true,  was  at  first  warmly  greeted  by  the 
Church,  but  the  Church  had  grown  so  discredited  during  the 

*  Diez,  Lebcn  und  Werke  der  Troubadours,  pp.  450,  576. — Millot,  Hist.  Lit- 
Wraire  des  Troubadours,  III.  244-50. 

t  Teulet,  Layettes,  II.  185,  236-8. 

In  1239  we  find  Raymond  asking  for  six  months'  delay  in  the  payment  of  one 
of  the  instalments  (lb.  p.  406). 


POSITION    OF    THE    CHURCH.  3 

events  of  the  past  half-century  that  its  influence  was  less  than  in 
any  other  spot  in  Christendom.  Even  in  Aragon  the  Council  of 
Tarragona,  in  1238,  felt  itself  compelled  to  decree  excommunica- 
tion against  those  who  composed  or  applauded  lampoons  against 
the  clergy.  The  abuse  of  the  interdict  had  grown  to  such  propor- 
tions that  Innocent  TV.,  in  1243,  and  again  in  12-15,  was  obliged 
to  forbid  its  employment  throughout  southern  France,  in  all  places 
suspected  of  heresy,  because  it  afforded  to  heretics  so  manifold  an 
occasion  of  asserting  that  it  was  used  for  private  interests,  and  not 
for  the  salvation  of  souls.  During  the  troubles  which  followed 
after  the  crusade  of  Louis  VIII.  the  bishops  had  taken  advantage 
of  the  confusion  to  seize  many  lands  to  which  they  had  no  claim, 
and  this  involved  them  in  endless  quarrels  with  the  royal  fisc  in  the 
territories  which  fell  to  the  king,  while  in  those  which  remained 
to  Raymond,  the  pious  St.  Louis  was  forced  to  interfere  to  obtain 
for  him  a  restoration  of  what  they  obstinately  refused  to  surren- 
der. The  Church  itself  was  so  deeply  tainted  with  heresy  that 
the  faithful  were  scandalized  at  seeing  the  practical  immunity  en- 
joyed by  heretical  clerks,  owing  to  the  difficulty  of  assembling  a 
sufficient  number  of  bishops  to  officiate  at  their  degradation,  and 
Gregory  IX.  felt  it  necessary,  in  1233,  to  decree  that  in  such  cases 
a  single  bishop,  with  some  of  his  abbots,  should  have  power  to 
deprive  them  of  holy  orders  and  dehver  them  to  the  secular  arm 
to  be  burned — a  provision  Avhich  he  subsequently  embodied  in  the 
canon  law.  Innocent  lY.,  moreover,  in  1245,  felt  called  upon  to 
order  his  legate  in  Languedoc  to  see  that  no  one  suspected  of  her- 
esy was  elected  or  consecrated  as  bishop.  On  the  other  hand, 
priests  who  were  zealous  in  aiding  the  Inquisition  sometimes  found 
tliat  the  enmities  thus  excited  rendered  it  impossible  for  them  to 
reside  in  their  parishes,  as  occurred  in  the  case  of  Guillem  Pierre, 
a  priest  of  Narbonne,  in  1246,  who  on  this  account  was  allowed  to 
employ  a  vicar  and  to  hold  a  plurality  of  benefices.  About  the 
same  time  Innocent  IV.  felt  obliged  to  express  his  surprise  that 
the  prelates  disobeyed  his  repeated  commands  to  assist  the  Inqui- 
sition ;  he  has  trustworthy  information  that  they  neglect  to  do  so, 
and  he  threatens  them  roundly  with  his  displeasure  unless  they 
manifest  greater  zeal.  Bernard  Gui,  indeed,  speaks  of  the  bishops 
who  favored  Count  Raymond  as  among  the  craftiest  and  most 
dangeroi\s  enemies  of  the  inquisitors.      The  natural  antagonism 


4  LANGUEDOC. 

between  the  Mendicants  and  the  secular  clergy  was,  moreover,  in- 
creased by  the  pretension  of  the  inquisitors  to  supervise  the  priest- 
hood and  see  that  they  performed  their  neglected  duty  in  all  that 
pertained  to  the  extension  of  the  faith.  That  under  such  circum- 
stances the  Dominicans  employed  in  the  pious  work  should  suffer 
constant  molestation  scarce  needs  the  explanation  given  by  the 
pope  that  it  was  through  the  influence  of  the  Arch  Enemy.* 

Another  serious  impediment  to  the  operations  of  the  Inqui- 
sition lay  in  the  absence  of  places  of  detention  for  those  accused 
and  of  prisons  for  those  condemned.  We  have  already  seen  how 
the  bishops  shirked  their  duty  in  providing  jails  for  the  multitudes 
of  prisoners  until  St.  Louis  was  obhged  to  step  in  and  construct 
them,  and  during  this  prolonged  interval  the  sentences  of  the  in- 
quisitors show,  in  the  number  of  contumacious  absentees  after  a 
preliminary  hearing,  how  impossible  it  often  was  to  retain  hold  of 
heretics  who  had  been  arrested.f 

To  undertake,  in  such  an  environment,  the  apparently  hope- 
less task  of  suppressing  heresy  required  men  of  exceptional  char- 
acter, and  they  were  not  wanting.  Repulsive  as  their  acts  must 
seem  to  us,  we  cannot  refuse  to  them  the  tribute  due  to  their  fear- 
less fanaticism.  No  labor  was  too  arduous  for  their  unflagging 
zeal,  no  danger  too  great  for  their  unshrinking  courage.  Regard- 
ing themselves  as  elected  to  perform  God's  work,  they  set  about 
it  with  a  sublime  self-confidence  which  lifted  them  above  the 
weakness  of  humanity.  As  the  mouthpiece  of  God,  the  mendi- 
cant friar,  who  lived  on  charity,  spoke  to  prince  and  people  with 
all  the  awful  authority  of  the  Church,  and  exacted  obedience  or 
punished  contumacy  unhesitatingly  and  absolutely.     Such  men  as 


*  Concil.  Tarraconens.  ann.  1238  c.  11  (Mart.  Ampl.  Coll.  VII.  134).  —  Ripoll 
I.  120, 145, 165.— Potthast  No.  9452, 11092,  11094, 11515.— Vaissette,  III.  Pr.  365. 
— Teulet,  Layettes,  II.  262. — Arch,  dos  FrSres  Precheurs  de  Toulouse  (Doat, 
XXXI.  19).— C.  1  Sexto  v.  2.— Rayuald.  ann.  1243,  No.  30.— Arch,  de  Tlnq.  de 
Care.  (Doat,  XXXI.  69).  — Bern.  Guidon,  de  Trib.  Grad.  Pr^edicat.  (Bouquet, 
XXI.  739).— Practica  super  Inquisit.  (MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin.  No.  14930,  fol. 
224). 

When  Cardinal  Wolsey  sought  to  reform  the  English  Church  he  found  the 
same  difficulty  in  obtaining  bishops  to  degrade  clerical  criminals,  and  he  ob- 
tained from  Clement  VII.  the  same  remedy  (Rymer,  XIV.  239). 

t  Coll.  Doat,  XXI.  149, 153,  156,  158.— MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin.  No.  9992. 


UNPROMISING    ASPECT.  5 

Pierre  Cella,  Guillem  Arnaud,  Arnaud  Catala,  Ferrer  the  Catalan, 
Pons  de  Saint-Gilles,  Pons  de  TEsparre,  and  Bernard  de  Caux,  beard- 
ed prince  and  prelate,  were  as  ready  to  endure  as  merciless  to  inflict, 
were  veritable  Maccabees  in  the  internecine  strife  with  heresy,  and 
3^et  were  kind  and  pitiful  to  the  miserable  and  overflowing  with 
tears  in  their  prayers  and  discourses.  They  were  the  culminating 
development  of  the  influences  which  produced  the  Church  Militant 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  their  hands  the  Inquisition  was  the 
most  effective  instrument  whereby  it  maintained  its  supremacy. 
A  secondary  result  was  the  complete  subjugation  of  the  South  to 
the  King  of  Paris,  and  its  unification  with  the  rest  of  France. 

If  the  faithful  had  imagined  that  the  Treaty  of  1229  had  end- 
ed the  contest  with  heresy  they  were  quickly  undeceived.  The 
blood-money  for  the  capture  of  heretics,  promised  by  Count  Eay- 
mond,  was  indeed  paid  when  earned,  for  the  Inquisition  undertook 
to  see  that  this  was  done,  but  the  earning  of  it  was  dangerous. 
Nobles  and  burghers  alike  protected  and  defended  the  proscribed 
class,  and  those  who  hunted  them  were  slain  without  mercy  when 
occasion  offered.  The  heretics  continued  as  numerous  as  ever, 
and  we  have  already  seen  the  fruitless  efforts  put  forth  by  the 
Cardinal  Legate  Romano  and  the  Council  of  Toulouse.  Even  the 
university  which  Raymond  bound  himself  to  establish  in  Toulouse 
for  the  propagation  of  the  faith,  though  it  subsequently  performed 
its  work,  was  at  first  a  failure.  •  Learned  theologians  were  brought 
from  Paris  to  fill  its  chairs,  but  their  scholastic  subtleties  were 
laughed  at  by  the  mocking  Southrons  as  absurd  novelties,  and  the 
heretics  were  bold  enough  to  contend  with  them  in  debate.  After 
a  few  years  Raymond  neglected  to  continue  the  stipends,  and  for 
a  time  the  university  was  suspended.* 


*  Practica  super  Inquisit.  (MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  14930,  fol.  224).— 
Guill.  Pelisso  Chron.  (Ed.  Molinier,  Anicii,  1880,  pp.  6,  15).— Epistt.  Stccul.  XIII. 
T.  I.  No.  688  (Monument.  Hist.  German.). —Bern.  Guidon.  Vit.  Grcgor.  PP.  IX. 
(Muratori  S.  R.I.  III.  573). 

One  of  the  complaints  made  by  Gregory  IX.  against  Raymond,  in  1236,  was 
that  he  had  neglected  to  pay  the  salaries  of  the  professors,  and  that  the  school 
of  Toulouse  was  dissolved  (Teulct,  Layettes,  II.  315).  In  1239,  however,  a  re- 
ceipt in  full  for  them  was  exhibited  to  the  papal  legate  (lb.  p.  397),  and  in  1242, 
when  Raymond  was  under  peril  of  death  in  the  Agenois,  his  chief  physician  was 
Loup  of  Spain,  the  professor  of  medicine  in  the  University  (lb.  p.  466). 


6  L  A  N  U  U  E  D  O  U. 

The  most  encouraging  feature  of  the  situation,  one,  indeed, 
full  of  promise,  was  the  steady  progress  of  the  Dominican  Order. 
It  had  outgrown  the  modest  Church  of  St.  Eomano,  bestowed 
upon  it  by  J^ishop  Foulques ;  and  in  1230  the  piety  of  a  prominent 
burgher  of  Touh>use,  Pons  de  Capdenier,  provided  for  it  more 
commodious  quarters  in  an  extensive  garden,  situated  partly  in 
the  city  and  partly  in  the  suburbs.  The  inmates  of  the  convent, 
some  forty  in  number,  were  always  ready  to  furnish  champions  of 
the  Cross,  whose  ardent  zeal  shrank  from  neither  toil  nor  peril ; 
and  when,  in  1232,  the  fanatic  Bishop  Foulques  died  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  yet  more  fiery  fanatic,  the  Dominican  Provincial 
Raymond  du  Fauga,  the  Order  was  fully  prepared  to  enter  upon 
the  exterminating  war  with  heresy  which  was  to  last  for  a  hun- 
dred 3'^ears.* 

The  eager  zeal  of  the  friars  did  not  wait  to  be  armed  with  the 
organized  authorization  of  inquisitorial  powers.  Their  leading 
duty  was  to  combat  heresy,  and  their  assaults  on  it  were  uninter- 
mitting.  In  1231  a  friar,  in  a  sermon,  declared  that  Toulouse  was 
full  of  heretics,  who  held  their  assemblies  there  and  disseminated 
their  errors  without  hindrance.  Already  the  magistrates  seem  to 
have  looked  askance  on  these  pious  efforts,  for  this  assertion  was 
made  the  occasion  of  a  decided  attempt  at  repression.  The  con- 
suls of  the  city  met  and  summoned  before  them,  in  the  capitole, 
or  town-haU,  the  prior,  Pierre  d'Alais.  There  they  roundly  scold- 
ed and  threatened  him,  declaring  that  it  was  false  to  assert  the 
existence  of  heresy  in  the  town,  and  forbidding  such  utterances 
for  the  future.  Trivial  as  was  the  occurrence,  it  has  interest  as 
the  commencement  of  the  ill-will  between  the  authorities  of  Tou- 
louse and  the  Inquisition,  and  as  illustrating  the  sense  of  munici- 
pal pride  and  independence  stiU  cherished  in  the  cities  of  the  South. 
It  required  but  a  few  years'  struggle  to  trammel  the  civic  liberties 
which  had  held  their  own  against  feudalism,  but  which  could  not 
stand  against  the  subtler  despotism  of  the  Church.f 

Even  thus  early  Dominican  ardor  refused  to  be  thus  restrained. 
Master  Roland  of  Cremona,  noted  as  the  first  Dominican  licentiate 
of  the  University  of  Paris,  who  had  been  brought  to  Toulouse  to 
teach  theology  in  the  infant  IJniversity,  was  scandalized  when  he 


•  Pelisso  Chron.  pp.  7-8.  t  Ibid.  pp.  9-10, 


IRREGULAR   PERSECUTION.  7 

heard  of  the  insolent  language  of  the  consuls,  and  exclaimed  that 
it  was  only  a  fresh  incentive  to  preach  against  heresy  more  bit- 
terly than  ever.  He  set  the  example  in  this,  and  was  eagerly  fol- 
lowed by  many  of  the  brethren.  He  soon,  too,  had  an  opportunity 
of  proving  the  falsity  of  the  consuls'  disclaimer.  It  transpired  that 
Jean  Pierre  Donat,  a  canon  of  the  ancient  Church  of  Saint  Sernin, 
who  had  recently  died  and  been  buried  in  the  cloister,  had  been 
secretly  hereticated  on  his  death -bed.  "Without  authority,  and 
apparently  without  legal  investigation.  Master  Koland  assembled 
some  friars  and  clerks,  exhumed  the  body  from  the  cloister,  dragged 
it  through  the  streets,  and  publicly  burned  it.  Soon  afterwards 
he  heard  of  the  death  of  a  prominent  Waldensian  minister  named 
Galvan.  After  stirring  up  popular  passion  in  a  sermon,  he  marched 
at  the  head  of  a  motley  mob  to  the  house  where  the  heretic  had 
died  and  levelled  it  to  the  ground ;  then  proceeding  to  the  Ceme- 
tery of  Villeneuve,  where  the  body  was  interred,  he  dug  it  up  and 
dragged  it  through  the  city,  accompanied  by  an  immense  proces- 
sion, to  the  public  place  of  execution  beyond  the  walls,  where  it 
was  solemnly  burned.* 

All  this  was  volunteer  persecution.  The  episcopal  court  was 
as  yet  the  only  tribunal  having  power  to  act  in  such  matters,  and 
it,  as  we  have  seen,  could  only  authorize  the  secular  arm  to  do  its 
duty  in  the  final  execution.  Yet  the  episcopal  court  seems  to  have 
been  in  no  way  invoked  in  these  proceedings,  and  no  protest  is  re- 
corded as  having  been  uttered  against  such  irregular  enforcements 
of  the  law  by  the  mob.  There  was,  in  fact,  no  organization  for 
the  steady  repression  of  heresy.  Bishop  Eaymond  appears  to  have 
satisfied  himself  with  an  occasional  raid  against  heretics  outside 
of  the  city,  and  to  have  allowed  those  within  it  virtual  immunity 
under  the  protection  of  the  consuls,  though  he  had,  in  virtue  of  his 
office,  all  the  powers  requisite  for  the  purpose,  and  the  machinery 
for  their  effective  use  could  have  readily  been  developed.  No  per- 
manent results  were  to  be  expected  from  fitful  bursts  of  zeal,  and 
the  suppression  of  heresy  might  well  seem  to  be  as  far  off  as  ever. 

Urgent  as  was  evidently  the  need  of  some  organized  body  de- 
voted exclusively  to  persecution,  the  appointment  of  the  first 


•  Peliaso  Chron.  pp.  10-11.  —  Preger,  Vorarbeiten  zu  einer  Geschichte  der 
deutschen  Mystik,  p.  17. 


8  LANGUEDOC. 

inquisitors,  in  1233,  seems  not  to  have  been  regarded  as  possess- 
ing any  special  significance.  It  was  merely  an  experiment,  from 
which  no  great  results  were  anticipated.  Frore  Guillem  Pehsson, 
who  shared  in  the  labors  and  perils  of  the  nascent  Inquisition, 
and  who  enthusiastically  chronicled  them,  evidently  does  not  con- 
sider it  as  an  innovation  worthy  of  particular  attention.  It  was 
so  natural  an  evolution  from  the  interaction  of  the  forces  and 
materials  of  the  period,  and  its  future  importance  was  so  little 
suspected,  that  he  passes  over  its  founding  as  an  incident  of  less 
moment  than  the  succession  to  the  Priory  of  Toulouse.  "  Frere 
Pons  de  Saint  Gilles,"  he  sa3^s,  "  was  made  Prior  of  Toulouse,  who 
bore  himself  manfully  and  effectively  for  the  faith  against  the 
heretics,  together  with  Frure  Pierre  Cella  of  Toulouse  and  Frere 
Guillem  Arnaud  of  MontpeUier,  whom  the  lord  pope  made  inquis- 
itors asrainst  the  heretics  in  the  dioceses  of  Toulouse  and  Cahors. 
Also,  the  Legate  Archbishop  of  Vienne  made  Frere  Arnaud  Cata- 
la,  who  was  then  of  the  Convent  of  Toulouse,  inquisitor  against 
the  heretics."  Thus  colorless  is  the  only  contemporary  account  of 
the  establishment  of  the  Holy  Office.* 

How  Uttle  the  functions  of  these  new  officials  were  at  first  un- 
derstood is  manifested  by  an  occurrence,  which  is  also  highly  sug- 
gestive of  the  tension  of  pubhc  feeling.  In  a  quarrel  between  two 
citizens,  one  of  them,  Bernard  Peitevin,  called  the  other,  Bernard 
de  Solier,  a  heretic.  This  was  a  dangerous  reputation  to  have, 
and  the  offended  man  summoned  his  antagonist  before  the  consuls. 
The  heretical  party,  we  are  told,  had  obtained  the  upper  hand  in 
Toulouse,  and  the  magistrates  were  all  either  sympatliizers  with  or 
believers  in  heresy.  Bernard  Peitevin  was  condemned  to  exile  for 
a  term  of  years,  to  pay  a  fine  both  to  the  complainant  and  to  the 
city,  and  to  swear  publicly  in  the  town-hall  that  he  had  lied,  and 
that  de  Solier  was  a  good  Catholic.  The  sentence  was  a  trifle 
vindictive,  and  Peitevin  sought  counsel  of  the  Dominicans,  Avho 
recommended  him  to  appeal  to  the  bishop.  Episcopal  jurisdiction 
in  such  a  matter  was  perhaps  doubtful,  but  Eaymond  du  Fauga 
entertained  the  appeal.  A  few  years  later,  if  any  cognizance  had 
been  taken  of  the  case  it  would  have  been  by  the  Inquisition,  but 


*  Pelisso  Cbron.  p.  13.     Cf.  Bern.  Guidon.  Vit.  Gregor.  PP.  IX.  (Muratori  S. 
R.  I.  III.  573). 


SUBORDINATION    OF  INQUISITORS.  9 

now  the  inquisitors,  Pierre  Cella  and  Guillem  Arnaud,  appeared 
as  advocates  of  the  appellant  in  the  bishop's  court,  and  so  clearly 
proved  de  Solier's  heresy  that  the  miserable  wretch  fled  to  Lorn- 
bardy.* 

Similar  indefiniteness  of  procedure  is  visible  in  the  next  at- 
tempt. The  inquisitors,  Pierre  and  Guillem,  began  to  make  an 
inquest  through  the  city,  and  cited  numerous  suspects,  all  of  whom 
found  defenders  among  the  chief  citizens.  The  hearings  took 
place  before  them,  but  seem  as  yet  to  have  been  in  public.  One 
of  the  accused,  named  Jean  Teisseire,  asserted  himself  to  be  a  good 
Catholic  because  he  had  no  scruples  in  maintaining  marital  rela- 
tions with  his  wife,  in  eating  flesh,  and  in  lying  and  swearing,  and 
he  warned  the  crowd  that  they  were  liable  to  the  same  charge, 
and  that  it  would  be  wiser  for  them  to  make  common  cause  than 
to  abandon  him.  When  he  was  condemned,  and  the  viguier,  the 
official  representative  of  the  count,  was  about  to  conduct  him  to 
the  stake,  so  threatening  a  clamor  arose  that  the  prisoner  was 
hurried  to  the  bishop's  prison,  still  proclaiming  his  orthodoxy. 
Intense  excitement  pervaded  the  city,  and  menaces  were  freely 
uttered  to  destroy  the  Dominican  convent  and  to  stone  all  the 
friars,  who  were  accused  of  persecuting  the  innocent.  While  in 
prison  Teisseire  pretended  to  fall  mortally  sick,  and  asked  for  the 
sacraments ;  but  when  the  bailli  of  Lavaur  brought  to  Toulouse 
some  perfected  heretics  and  delivered  them  to  the  bishop,  Teis- 
seire allowed  himself  to  be  hereticated  by  them  in  prison,  and 
grew  so  ardent  in  the  faith  under  their  exhortations  that  when 
they  were  taken  out  for  examination  he  accompanied  them,  de- 
claring that  he  would  share  their  fate.  The  bishop  assembled  the 
magistrates  and  many  citizens,  in  whose  presence  he  examined  the 
prisoners.  They  were  all  condemned,  including  Teisseire,  who  ob- 
stinately refused  to  recant,  and  no  further  opposition  was  offered 
when  they  were  all  duly  burned.f 

Here  we  see  the  inquisitorial  jurisdiction  completely  subordi- 
nate to  that  of  the  bishop,  but  when  the  inquisitors  soon  after- 
wards left  Toulouse  to  hold  inquests  elsewhere  they  acted  with 
full  independence.  At  Cahors  we  hear  nothing  of  the  Bishop 
of  Querci  taking  part  in  the  proceedings  under  which  they  con- 


*  Pelisso  pp.  10-17.  t  Ibid.  pp.  17-20. 


10  LANGUEDOC. 

deraned  a  number  of  the  dead,  exhuming  and  burning  their  bodies, 
and  inspiring  sucli  fear  that  a  prominent  believer,  Raymond  de 
Broleas,  fled  to  Rome.  At  Moissac  they  condemned  Jean  du 
Gard,  who  fled  to  Montsegur,  and  they  cited  a  certain  Folquet, 
who,  in  terror,  entered  the  convent  of  Belleperche  as  a  Cistercian 
monk,  and,  finding  that  this  was  of  no  avail,  finally  fled  to  Lom- 
bardy.  Meanwhile  Frure  Arnaud  Catala  and  our  chronicler,  Guil- 
lem  PeUsson,  descended  upon  Albi,  where  they  penanced  a  dozen 
citizens  by  ordering  them  to  Palestine,  and  in  conjunction  with 
another  inquisitor,  Guillem  de  Lombers,  burned  two  heretics, 
Pierre  de  Puechperdut  and  Pierre  Bomassipio.* 

The  absence  of  the  inquisitors  from  Toulouse  made  no  differ- 
ence in  the  good  work,  for  their  duties  were  assumed  by  their 
prior,  Pons  de  Saint-Gilles.  Under  what  authority  he  acted  is  not 
stated,  but  we  find  him,  in  conjunction  with  another  friar,  trying 
and  condemning  a  certain  Arnaud  Sancier,  who  was  burned,  in 
spite  of  his  protests  to  the  last  that  he  was  a  good  Catholic,  caus- 
ing great  agitation  in  the  city,  but  no  tumultuous  uprising.f 

The  terror  which  Pelisson  boasts  that  these  proceedings  spread 
through  the  land  was  probably  owing  not  only  to  the  evidence 
they  afforded  of  an  organized  system  of  persecution,  but  also  to 
their  introduction  of  a  much  more  effective  method  of  prosecution 
than  had  heretofore  been  known.  The  "  heretic,"  so  called,  was 
the  perfected  teacher  who .  disdained  to  deny  his  faith,  and  his 
burning  was  accepted  by  all  as  a  matter  of  course,  as  also  was  that 
of  the  "  credens,"  or  believer,  who  was  defiantly  contumacious  and 
persisted  in  admitting  and  adhering  to  his  creed.  Hitherto,  how- 
ever, the  believer  who  professed  orthodoxy  seems  generally  to 
have  escaped,  in  the  imperfection  of  the  judicial  means  of  proving 
his  guilt.  The  friars,  trained  in  the  subtleties  of  disputation  and 
learned  in  both  civil  and  canon  law,  were  specially  fitted  for  the 
detection  of  this  particularly  dangerous  secret  misbelief,  and  their 
persistence  in  worrying  their  victims  to  the  death  was  well  calcu- 
lated to  spread  alarm,  not  only  among  the  guilty,  but  among  the 
innocent. 

How  reasonable  were  the  fears  inspired  by  the  speedy  infor- 
mality of  the  justice  accorded  to  the  heretic  is  well  illustrated  by 


*  Peliaso  Cliron.  pp.  20-1.  t  Ibid.  p.  23. 


SUMMARY    PROCEEDINGS.  H 

a  case  occurring  in  1234.  When  the  canonization  of  St.  Dominic 
was  announced  in  Toulouse  it  was  celebrated  in  a  solemn  mass 
performed  by  Bishop  Raymond  in  the  Dominican  convent.  St. 
Dominic,  however,  desired  to  mark  the  occasion  with  some  more 
edifying  manifestation  of  his  peculiar  functions,  and  caused  word 
to  be  brought  to  the  bishop,  as  the  latter  was  leaving  the  church 
for  the  refectory  to  partake  of  a  meal,  that  a  woman  had  just  been 
hereticated  in  a  house  hard  by,  in  the  Rue  de  TOlmet  sec.  The 
bishop,  with  the  prior  and  some  others,  hurried  thither.  It  was 
the  house  of  Peitavin  Borsier,  the  general  messenger  of  the  here- 
tics of  Toulouse,  whose  mother-in-law  lay  dying  of  fever.  So  sud- 
den was  the  entrance  of  the  intruders  that  the  woman's  friends 
could  only  tell  her  "  the  bishop  is  coming,"  and  she,  who  expected 
a  visit  from  the  heretic  bishop,  was  easily  led  on  by  Raymond  to 
make  a  full  declaration  of  her  heresy  and  to  pledge  herself  to  be 
steadfast  in  it.  Then,  revealing  himself,  he  ordered  her  to  recant, 
and,  on  her  refusal,  he  summoned  the  viguier,  condemned  her  as  a 
heretic,  and  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  the  dying  creature  car- 
ried off  on  her  bed  and  burned  at  the  place  of  execution.  Borsier 
and  his  colleague,  Bernard  Aldric  of  Dremil,  Tvere  captured,  and 
betrayed  many  of  their  friends ;  and  then  Raymond  and  the  fri- 
ars returned  to  their  neglected  dinner,  giving  thanks  to  God  and 
to  St.  Dominic  for  so  signal  a  manifestation  in  favor  of  the  faith.* 
The  ferocious  exultation  with  which  these  extra-judicial  hor- 
rors were  perpetrated  is  well  reflected  in  a  poem  of  the  period  by 
Isarn,  the  Dominican  Prior  of  Villemier.  He  represents  himself 
as  disputing  with  Sicard  de  Figueras,  a  Catharan  bishop,  and  each 
of  his  theological  arguments  is  clinched  with  a  threat — 

"  E'  s'aquest  no  vols  cvejre  vec  te  '1  foe  aizinat 
Que  art  tos  companhos, 
Aras  vuelh  que  m'  respondas  en  un  mot  o  en  dos, 
Si  cauziras  et  foe  o  remanras  ab  nos." 

"  If  you  wiU  not  believe  this,  look  at  that  raging  fire  which  is  con- 
suming your  comrades.  Now  I  Avisli  you  to  reply  to  me  in  one 
word  or  two,  for  you  will  burn  in  the  fire  or  join  us."  Or  again, 
"  If  you  do  not  confess  at  once,  the  flames  are  ah'eady  lighted  ; 


•  Pelisso  Chron.  pp.  23-5. 


12  LANGUEDOC. 

your  name  is  proclaimed  throughout  the  city  with  the  blast  of 
trumpets,  and  the  people  are  gathering  to  see  you  burn."  In  this 
terrible  poem,  Isarn  only  turned  into  verse  what  he  felt  in  his  own 
heart,  and  what  he  saw  passing  under  his  eyes  almost  daily.* 

As  tlie  holy  work  assumed  shape  and  its  prospects  of  results 
grew  more  encouraging,  the  zeal  of  the  hunters  of  men  increased, 
while  the  fear  and  hatred  of  the  hunted  became  more  threatening. 
On  both  sides  passion  was  fanned  into  flame.  Already,  in  1233, 
two  Dominicans,  sent  to  Cordes  to  seek  out  heretics,  had  been 
slain  by  the  terrified  citizens.  At  Albi  the  people,  excited  by  the 
burning  of  the  two  heretics  already  referred  to,  rose,  June  14, 
1234,  when  Arnaud  Catala  ordered  the  episcopal  bailli  to  dig  up 
the  bones  of  a  heretic  woman  named  Beissera  whom  he  had  con- 
demned. The  bailli  sent  back  word  that  he  dared  not  do  it.  Ar- 
naud left  the  episcopal  synod  in  which  he  was  sitting,  coolly  went 
to  the  cemetery,  himself  gave  the  first  strokes  of  the  mattock,  and 
then,  ordering  the  officials  to  proceed  with  the  work,  returned  to 
the  synod.  The  officials  quickly  rushed  after  him,  saying  that 
they  had  been  ejected  from  the  burial-ground  by  the  mob.  Ar- 
naud returned  and  found  it  occupied  by  a  crowd  of  howling  sons 
pf  Belial,  who  quickly  closed  in  on  him,  striking  him  in  the  face 
and  pummeUing  him  on  all  sides,  with  shouts  of  "  Kill  him !  he  has 
no  right  to  live !"  Some  endeavored  to  drag  him  into  the  shops 
hard  by  to  slay  him;  others  wished  to  throw  him  into  the  river 
Tarn,  but  he  was  rescued  and  taken  back  to  the  synod,  followed 
by  a  mass  of  men  fiercely  shouting  for  his  death.  The  whole 
city,  indeed,  seemed  to  be  of  one  mind,  and  many  of  the  principal 
burghers  were  leaders  of  the  tumult.  It  is  satisfactory  to  learn 
that,  although  Arnaud  mercifully  withdrew  the  excommunication 
which  he  launched  at  the  rebellious  city,  his  successor,  Frere  Fer- 
rer, wrought  the  judgment  of  God  upon  the  guilty,  imprisoning 
many  of  them  and  burning  others,  f 


*  Millot,  Troubadours,  II.  65-77. — Mary-Lafon,  Histoire  du  Midi  de  la  France, 
III.  396-99. 

t  Vaissette,  III.  403.  — Martene  Thesaur.  I.  985.  —  Pelisso  Chrou.  pp.  13-14, 
52-9. 

Chabanaud  (Vaissette,  fid.  Privat,  X.  330)  thinks  it  probable  that  this  Ar- 
naud Catala  is  the  troubadour  of  the  same  name,  developing,  like  Folquet  of 
Marseilles  and  others,  from  a  poet  to  a  persecutor. 


POPULAR    RESISTANCE.  13 

In  Narbonne  disturbances  arose  even  more  serious,  although 
special  inquisitors  had  not  yet  been  sent  there.  In  March,  1234, 
the  Dominican  prior,  Francois  Ferrer,  undertook  a  volunteer  in- 
quisition and  threw  in  prison  a  citizen  named  Raymond  d'Argens. 
Fifteen  years  previous  the  artisans  of  the  suburb  had  organized  a 
confederation  for  mutual  support  caUed  the  Amistance,  and  this 
body  arose  as  one  man  and  forcibly  rescued  the  prisoner.  The 
arclibishop,  Pierre  Amiel,  and  the  viscount,  Aimery  of  Narbonne, 
undertook  to  rearrest  him,  but  found  his  house  guarded  by  the 
Amistance,  which  rushed  upon  their  followers  with  shouts  of 
"  Kill !  kill !"  and  drove  them  away  after  a  brief  skirmish,  in  which 
the  prior  was  badly  handled.  The  archbishop  had  recourse  to  ex- 
communication and  interdict,  but  to  little  purpose,  for  the  Amis- 
tance seized  his  domains  and  drove  him  from  the  city.  Both  sides 
sought  aUies.  Gregory  IX.  appealed  to  King  Jayme  of  Aragon, 
while  a  complaint  from  the  consuls  of  Narbonne  to  those  of  Nimes 
looks  as  though  they  were  endeavoring  to  effect  a  confederation 
of  the  cities  against  the  Inquisition,  of  whose  arbitrary  and  illegal 
methods  of  procedure  they  give  abundant  details.  A  kind  of  truce 
was  patched  up  in  October,  but  the  troubles  recommenced  when 
the  prior,  in  obedience  to  an  order  from  his  provincial,  undertook 
a  fresh  inquisition,  and  made  a  number  of  arrests.  In  December 
a  suspension  was  obtained  by  the  citizens  appealing  to  the  pope, 
the  king,  and  the  legate,  but  in  1235  the  people  rose  against  the 
Dominicans,  drove  them  from  the  city,  sacked  their  convent,  and 
destroyed  all  the  records  of  the  proceedings  against  heresy.  Arch- 
bishop Pierre  had  cunningly  separated  the  city  from  the  suburb, 
about  equal  in  population,  by  confining  the  inquisition  to  the  lat- 
ter, and  this  bore  fruit  in  his  securing  the  armed  support  of  the 
former.  The  suburb  placed  itself  under  the  protection  of  Count 
Raymond,  w^ho,  nothing  loath  to  aggravate  the  trouble,  came  there 
and  gave  to  the  people  as  leaders  Olivier  de  Termes  and  Gui- 
raud  de  Niort,  two  notorious  defenders  of  heretics.  A  bloody 
civil  war  broke  out  between  the  two  sections,  which  lasted  until 
April,  1237,  when  a  truce  for  a  year  was  agreed  upon.  In 
the  following  August  the  Count  of  Toulouse  and  the  Seneschal 
of  Carcassonne  were  caUed  in  as  arbitrators,  and  in  March,  1238, 
a  peace  was  concluded.  That  the  Church  trium])hed  is  sho^^^l 
by  the  conditions  which  imposed  upon  some  of  the  participators 


14  LANGUEDOC. 

in  the  troubles  a  year's  service  in  Palestine  or  against  the  Moors 
of  Spain.* 

In  Toulouse,  the  centre  both  of  heresy  and  persecution,  in  spite 
of  mutterings  and  menaces,  open  opposition  to  the  Inquisition  was 
postponed  longer  than  elsewhere.  Although  Count  Eaymond  is 
constantly  represented  by  the  Church  party  as  the  chief  opponent 
of  the  Holy  Office,  it  was  probably  his  influence  that  succeeded  in 
staving  off  so  long  the  inevitable  rupture.  Hard  experience  from 
childhood  could  scarce  have  rendered  him  a  fervent  Catholic,  yet 
that  experience  had  shown  him  that  the  favor  and  protection  of 
the  Church  were  indispensable  if  he  would  retain  the  remnant  of 
territory  and  power  that  had  been  left  to  him.  He  could  not  as 
yet  be  at  heart  a  persecutor  of  heresy,  yet  he  could  not  afford  to 
antagonize  the  Church.  It  was  important  for  him  to  retain  the 
love  and  good-wiU  of  his  subjects  and  to  prevent  the  desolation  of 
his  cities  and  lordships,  but  it  was  yet  more  important  for  him  to 
escape  the  stigma  of  favoring  heresy,  and  to  avoid  calling  down 
upon  his  head  a  renewal  of  the  storm  in  which  he  had  been  so 
nearly  wrecked.  Few  princes  have  had  a  more  difficult  part  to 
play,  with  dangers  besetting  him  on  every  side,  and  if  he  earned 
the  reputation  of  a  trimmer  without  religious  convictions,  that 
reputation  and  his  retention  of  his  position  till  his  death  are  pei'- 
haps  the  best  proof  of  the  fundamental  wisdom  which  guided  his 
necessarily  tortuous  course.  Pierre  Cardinal,  the  Troubadour,  de- 
scribes him  as  defending  himself  from  the  assaults  of  the  worst  of 
men,  as  fearing  neither  the  Frenchman  nor  the  ecclesiastic,  and  as 
humble  only  with  the  good.f 

He  was  always  at  odds  with  his  prelates.  Intricate  questions 
with  regard  to  the  temporahties  were  a  constant  source  of  quarrel, 
and  he  lived  under  a  perpetual  reduplication  of  excommunications, 


»  Vaissette,  III.  402-3,  406;   Pr.  370-1,  379-81.  —  Coll.  Doat,  XXXI.  33.— 
Teulet,  Layettes,  II.  321,  324. 

t  "  Car  del  pejors  homes  que  son 
Se  defen  et  de  tot  le  mond ; 

Que  Franses  ni  clergia 
Ni  las  autras  gens  ne  raflfront ; 
Mas  als  bos  s'humilia 
Et  I'mal  confond." 
(Peyrat,  Les  Albigeois  et  I'lnquisition,  11.  394), 


POSITION    OF    COUNT    RAYMOND.  15 

for  he  had  been  so  long  under  the  ban  of  the  Church  that  no  bishop 
hesitated  for  a  moment  in  anathematizing  him.  Then,  one  of  the 
conditions  of  the  treaty  of  1229  had  been  that  within  two  years  he 
should  proceed  to  Palestine  and  wage  war  there  with  the  infidel 
for  five  years.  The  two  years  had  passed  away  without  his  per- 
forming the  vow ;  the  state  of  the  country  at  no  time  seemed  to 
render  so  prolonged  an  absence  safe,  and  for  years  a  leading  ob- 
ject of  his  policy  was  to  obtain  a  postponement  of  his  crusade  or 
immunity  for  the  non-observance  of  his  vow.  Moreover,  from  the 
date  of  the  peace  of  Paris  until  the  end  of  his  life  he  earnestly  and 
vainly  endeavored  to  obtain  from  Rome  permission  for  the  sepul- 
ture of  his  father's  body.  These  complications  crippled  him  in 
multitudinous  ways  and  exposed  him  to  immense  disadvantage  in 
his  fencing  with  the  hierarchy. 

As  early  as  1230  he  was  taxed  by  the  legate  with  inobservance 
of  the  conditions  of  the  peace,  and  was  forced  to  promise  amend- 
ment of  his  ways.  In  1232  we  see  Gregory  IX.  imperiously  or- 
dering him  to  be  energetic  in  the  duty  of  persecution,  and,  possibly 
in  obedience  to  this,  during  the  same  year,  we  find  him  personally 
accompanying  Bishop  Raymond  of  Toulouse  in  a  nocturnal  expe- 
dition among  the  mountains,  which  was  rewarded  with  the  capture 
of  nineteen  perfected  heretics,  male  and  female,  including  one  of 
their  most  important  leaders.  Pagan,  Seigneur  de  Becede,  whose 
castle  we  saw  captured  in  1227.  All  these  expiated  their  errors 
at  the  stake.  Yet  not  long  afterwards  the  Bishop  of  Tournay,  as 
papal  legate,  assembled  the  prelates  of  Languedoc  and  formally 
cited  Raymond  before  King  Louis  to  answer  for  his  slackness  in 
carrying  out  the  provisions  of  the  treaty.  The  result  of  this  was 
the  drawing  up  of  severe  enactments  against  heretics,  which  he 
was  obliged  to  promulgate  in  February,  1234.  In  spite  of  this, 
and  of  a  letter  from  Gregory  to  the  bishops  ordering  them  no 
longer  to  excommunicate  him  so  freely  as  before,  he  was  visited 
within  a  twelvemonth  with  two  fresh  excommunications,  for  pure- 
ly temporal  causes.  Then  came  fresh  urgency  from  the  pope  for 
the  extirpation  of  heresy,  with  which  Raymond  doubtless  made  a 
show  of  compliance,  as  his  heart  was  bent  on  obtaining  from  Rome 
a  restoration  of  the  Marquisate  of  Provence.  In  this  he  Avas 
strongly  backed  by  King  Louis,  whose  brother  Alfonse  was  to  be 
Raymond's  heir,  and  towards  the  close  of  the  year  he  sought  an 


16  LANGUEDOC. 

interview  with  Gregory  and  succeeded  in  effecting  it.  His  recon- 
ciliation with  the  papacy  ap])eared  to  be  complete.  His  military 
reputation  stood  high,  and  Gregory  made  use  of  his  visit  to  confide 
to  him  the  leadership  of  the  papal  troops  in  a  campaign  against 
the  rebellious  citizens  of  Home,  who  had  expelled  the  head  of  the 
Church  from  their  city.  Though  he  did  not  succeed  in  restoring 
the  pope,  they  parted  on  the  best  of  terms,  and  he  returned  to 
Toulouse  as  a  favored  son  of  the  Church,  ready  on  all  points  to 
obey  her  behests.''^ 

There  he  found  matters  rapidly  approaching  a  crisis  which 
tested  to  the  utmost  his  skill  in  temporizing.  Passions  on  both 
sides  were  rising  to  an  uncontrollable  point.  At  Easter,  1235,  the 
promise  of  grace  for  voluntary  confession  brought  forward  such 
crowds  of  penitent  heretics  that  the  Dominicans  were  insufficient 
to  take  their  testimony,  and  were  obhged  to  call  in  the  aid  of  the 
Franciscans  and  of  all  the  parish  priests  of  the  city.  Encouraged 
by  this,  the  prior.  Pons  de  Saint-Gilles,  commenced  to  seize  those 
who  had  not  come  forward  spontaneously.  Among  these  was  a 
certain  Arnaud  Dominique,  who,  to  save  his  life,  promised  to  betray 
eleven  heretics  residing  in  a  house  at  Cassers.  This  he  fulfilled, 
though  four  of  them  escaped  through  the  aid  of  the  neighboring 
peasants,  and  he  was  set  at  liberty.  The  long-suffering  of  the 
heretics,  however,  was  at  last  exhausted,  and  shortly  afterwards 
he  was  murdered  in  his  bed  at  Aigrefeuille  by  the  friends  of  those 
whom  he  had  thus  sacrificed.  Still  more  significant  of  the  dan- 
gerous tension  of  popular  feeling  was  a  mob  which,  under  the 
guidance  of  two  leading  citizens,  forcibly  rescued  Pierre-GuiUem 
Delort  from  the  hands  of  the  viguier  and  of  the  Abbot  of  Saint- 
Sernin,  who  had  arrested  him  and  were  conveying  him  to  prison. 
The  situation  was  becoming  unbearable,  and  soon  the  ceremony 
of  dragging  through  the  streets  and  burning  the  bodies  of  some 
dead  heretics  aroused  an  agitation  so  general  and  so  menacing 
that  Count  Kaymond  was  sent  for  in  hopes  that  his  interposition 

*  Bern.  Guidon.  Vit.  Gregor.  PP.  IX.  (Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  III.  573)  —Archives 
Nat.  de  France  J.  430,  No.  17, 18.— Guill.  Pod.  Laur.  c.  42.— Peyrat,  Hist,  des  Al- 
bigeois,  I.  287.— Harduiu.  Concil.VII.  203-8.— D'Achery  Spicileg.  III.  606.— Pot- 
thast  No.  9771.— Epistt.  Sseculi  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  577  (Mon.  Germ.  Hist.).— Matt 
Paris  ann.  1234,  p.  280.— Vaissette,  III.  399-400,  406.— Hist.  Diplom.  Frid.  H. 
T.  IV.  pp.  485,  799-803. 


TROUBLES    AT    TOULOUSE.  17 

might  avert  the  most  deplorable  consequences.  Thus  far,  although 
perhaps  somewhat  lacking  in  alacrity  of  persecution,  no  serious 
charges  could  be  laid  against  him.  His  officials,  his  baillis  and 
viguiers,  had  responded  to  all  appeals  of  the  inquisitors  and  had 
lent  the  aid  of  the  secular  ami  in  seizing  heretics,  in  burning  them, 
and  in  confiscating  their  property.  Yet  when  he  came  to  Tou- 
louse and  begged  the  inquisitors  to  suspend  for  a  time  the  vigor 
of  their  operations  he  was  not  listened  to.  Then  he  turned  to  the 
papal  legate,  Jean,  Archbishop  of  Vienne,  complaining  specially 
of  Pierre  Cella,  whom  he  considered  to  be  inspired  with  personal 
enmity  to  himself,  and  whom  he  regarded  as  the  chief  author  of 
the  troubles.  His  request  that  Cella's  operations  should  be  con- 
fined to  Querci  was  granted.  That  inquisitor  was  sent  to  Cahors, 
where,  with  the  assistance  of  Pons  Delmont  and  Guillem  Pelisson 
he  vigorously  traversed  the  land  and  forced  multitudes  to  confess 
their  guilt.* 

This  expedient  was  of  no  avail.  Persecution  continued  as  ag- 
gressive as  ever,  and  popular  indignation  steadily  rose.  The  in- 
evitable crisis  soon  came  which  should  determine  whether  the  In- 
quisition should  sink  into  insignificance,  as  had  been  the  case  with 
so  many  previous  efforts,  or  whether  it  should  triumph  over  all 
opposition  and  become  the  dominating  power  in  the  land. 

Guillem  Arnaud  was  in  no  way  abashed  by  the  banishment  of 
his  colleague.  Returning  from  a  brief  absence  at  Carcassonne,  of 
which  more  anon,  he  summoned  for  trial  as  beUevers  twelve  of 
the  leading  citizens  of  Toulouse,  one  of  them  a  consul.  They  re- 
fused to  appear,  and  threatened  him  with  violence  unless  he  should 
desist.  On  his  persisting,  word  was  sent  him,  with  the  assent  of 
Count  Raymond,  that  he  must  either  leave  the  city  or  abandon 
his  functions  as  inquisitor.  He  took  council  with  his  Dominican 
brethren,  when  it  was  unanimously  agreed  that  he  should  proceed 
manfully  in  his  duty.  The  consuls  then  ejected  him  by  force  from 
the  city ;  he  was  accompanied  to  the  bridge  over  the  Garonne  by 
all  the  friars,  and  as  he  departed  the  consuls  recorded  a  protest  to 
the  eifect  that  if  he  would  desist  from  the  inquisition  he  could  re- 
main ;  otherwise,  in  the  name  of  the  count  and  in  their  own,  they 
ordered  him  to  leave  the  city.     He  went  to  Carcassonne,  whence 


*  Pelisso  Cbron.  pp.  35-8. 
II.— 2 


18  L  A  N  G  U  E  D  O  C. 

he  ordered  the  Prior  of  Saint-l^]ticnne  and  the  parish  priests  to  re- 
peat the  citations  to  the  parties  already  summoned.  This  order 
was  bravely  obeyed  in  spite  of  threats,  when  the  consuls  sent  for 
the  prior  and  priests,  and  after  keeping  them  in  the  town-hall  part 
of  a  night,  expelled  them  from  the  town,  and  publicly  proclaimed 
that  any  one  daring  to  repeat  the  citations  should  be  put  to  death, 
and  that  any  one  obeying  the  summons  of  an  inquisitor  should  an- 
s\ver  for  it  in  body  and  goods.  Another  proclamation  followed, 
in  which  the  name  of  Count  Raymond  was  used,  prohibiting  that 
any  one  should  give  or  sell  anything  to  the  bishop,  the  Dominicans, 
or  the  canons  of  Saint-Etienne.  This  forced  the  bishop  to  leave 
the  city,  as  we  are  told  that  no  one  dared  even  to  bake  a  loaf  of 
bread  for  him,  and  the  populace,  moreover,  invaded  his  house,  beat 
his  clerks,  and  stole  his  horses.  The  Dominicans  fared  better,  for 
they  had  friends  hardy  enough  to  supply  them  with  necessaries, 
and  when  the  consuls  posted  guards  around  their  house,  still  bread 
and  cheese  and  other  food  was  thrown  over  their  walls  in  spite  of 
the  arrest  of  some  of  those  engaged  in  it.  Their  principal  suffer- 
ing was  from  lack  of  water,  which  had  to  be  brought  from  the 
Garonne,  and  as  this  source  of  supply  was  cut  off,  they  were  unable 
to  boil  their  vegetables.  For  three  weeks  they  thus  exultingly 
endured  their  martyrdom  in  a  holy  cause.  Matters  became  more 
serious  when  the  indomitable  Guillem  Arnaud  sent  from  Carcas- 
sonne a  letter  to  the  prior  saying,  that  as  no  one  dared  to  cite  the 
contumacious  citizens,  he  was  forced  to  order  two  of  the  friars  to 
summon  them  to  appear  before  him  personally  in  Carcassonne  to 
answer  for  their  faith,  and  that  two  others  must  accompany  them 
as  witnesses,  Tolhng  the  convent  bell,  the  prior  assembled  the 
brethren,  and  said  to  them  with  a  joyful  countenance :  "  Brethren, 
rejoice,  for  I  must  send  four  of  you  through  martyrdom  to  the 
throne  of  the  Most  High.  Such  are  the  commands  of  our  brother, 
Guillem  the  inquisitor,  and  whoever  obeys  them  will  be  slain  on 
the  spot,  as  threatened  by  the  consuls.  Let  those  who  are  ready 
to  die  for  Christ  ask  pardon."  With  a  common  impulse  the  whole 
body  cast  themselves  on  the  gi'ound,  which  was  the  Dominican 
form  of  asking  pardon,  and  the  prior  selected  four,  Ra3Tiiond  de 
Foix,  Jean  de  Saint-Michel,  Gui  de  Navarre,  and  Guillem  Pelisson. 
These  intrepidly  performed  their  duty,  even  penetrating  when 
necessar}'^  into  the  bed-chambers  of  the  accused.     Only  in  one 


TROUBLES    AT    TOULOUSE.  19 

house  were  they  ill-treated,  and  even  there,  when  the  sons  of  the 
person  cited  drew  knives  upon  them,  the  bystanders  interfered. 

There  was  evidently  nothing  to  be  done  with  men  who  thus 
courted  martyrdom.  To  gratify  them  would  be  suicidal,  and  the 
consuls  decided  to  expel  them.  On  being  informed  of  this  the 
prior  distributed  among  trusty  friends  the  books  and  sacred  ves- 
sels and  vestments  of  the  convent.  The  next  day  (Nov.  5  or  6, 
1235)  the  friars,  after  mass,  sat  down  to  their  simple  meal,  during 
which  the  consuls  came  with  a  great  crowd  and  threatened  to 
break  in  the  door.  The  friars  marched  in  procession  to  their 
church,  where  they  took  their  seats,  and  when  the  consuls  entered 
and  commanded  them  to  depart  they  refused.  Then  each  was 
seized  and  violently  led  forth,  two  of  them  who  threw  themselves 
on  the  ground  near  the  door  being  picked  up  by  the  hands  and 
feet  and  carried  out.  Thus  they  were  accompanied  through  the 
town,  but  not  otherwise  maltreated,  and  they  turned  the  aifair 
into  a  procession,  marching  two  by  two  and  singing  Te  Deum 
and  Salve  Regina.  At  first  they  went  to  a  farm  belonging  to  the 
church  of  Saint-fitienne,  but  the  consuls  posted  guards  to  see  that 
notliing  was  furnished  to  them,  and  the  next  day  the  prior  dis- 
tributed them  among  the  convents  of  the  province.  That  the 
whole  affair  enlisted  for  them  the  sympathies  of  the  faithful  was 
shown  by  two  persons  of  consideration  joining  them  and  entering 
the  Order  while  it  was  going  on.''^ 

It  is  significant  of  the  position  which  Guillem  Arnaud's  stead- 
fastness had  already  won  for  his  office  that  to  him  was  conceded  the 
vindication  of  this  series  of  outrages  on  the  immunity  of  the  Church. 
Bishop  Raymond  had  joined  him  in  Carcassonne  without  anathe- 
matizing the  authors  of  his  exile,  but  now  the  anathema  prompt- 
ly went  forth,  November  10, 1235,  uttered  by  the  inquisitor  with 
the  names  of  the  Bishops  of  Toulouse  and  Carcassonne  appended 
as  assenting  witnesses.  It  was  confined  to  the  consuls,  but  Count 
Raymond  was  not  allowed  to  escape  the  responsibilit}^  The  ex- 
communication was  sent  to  the  Franciscans  of  Toulouse  for  publi- 
cation, and  when  they  obeyed  they  too  were  expeUed,  in  no  gen- 


*  Pelisso  Chron.  pp.  30-40. — Bern.  Guidon.  Hist.  Fundat.  Convent.  Prijedicat. 
(Martene  Thesaur.  VL  460-1).— Epistt.  Saeculi  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  688  (Men.  Germ. 
Hist.).— Guill.  Pod.  Laur.  c.  43. 


20  LANGUEDOC. 

tie  fashion,  and  the  rebellious  city  was  virtually  left  without  eccle- 
siastics. Further  excommunications  followed,  now  including  the 
count,  and  Prior  Pons  de  Saint-Gilles  hastened  to  Italy  to  pour 
the  story  of  his  woes  into  the  sympathizing  ears  of  the  pope  and 
the  sacred  college.  Gregory  assailed  the  count  as  the  chief  of- 
fender. A  minatory  brief  of  April  28, 1236,  addressed  to  him,  is 
couched  in  the  severest  language.  He  is  held  responsible  for  the 
audacious  acts  of  the  consuls  ;  he  is  significantly  reminded  of  the 
unperformed  vow  of  the  crusade  ;  not  only  has  he  failed  to  extir- 
pate heresy  according  to  his  pledges,  but  he  is  a  manifest  fautor 
and  protector  of  heretics  ;  his  favorites  and  officers  are  suspect  of 
heresy  ;  he  protects  those  who  have  been  condemned ;  his  lands 
are  a  place  of  refuge  for  those  flying  from  persecution  elsewhere, 
so  that  heresy  is  daily  spreading  and  conversions  from  Cathohcism 
are  frequent,  while  zealous  churchmen  seeking  to  restrain  them 
are  slain  and  abused  with  impunity.  All  this  he  is  peremptorily 
ordered  to  correct  and  to  sail  with  his  knights  to  the  Holy  Land 
in  the  "general  passage"  of  the  following  March.  It  scarcely 
needed  the  reminder,  which  the  pope  did  not  spare  liim,  of  the 
labors  which  the  Church  and  its  Crusaders  had  undergone  to  purge 
his  lands  of  heresy.  He  had  too  keen  a  recollection  of  the  abyss 
from  which  he  had  escaped  to  risk  another  plunge.  He  had  gone 
as  far  as  he  dared  in  the  effort  to  protect  his  subjects,  and  it  were 
manifest  folly  to  draw  upon  his  head  and  theirs  another  inroad 
of  the  marauders  whom  the  pope  with  a  word  could  let  loose  upon 
him  to  earn  salvation  with  the  sword,* 

The  epistle  to  Raymond  was  accompanied  with  one  to  the  le- 
gate, instructing  him  to  compel  the  count  to  make  amends  and  per- 
form the  crusade.  To  Frederic  II,  he  wrote  forbidding  him  to 
call  on  Raymond  for  feudal  services,  as  the  count  was  under  ex- 
communication and  virtually  a  heretic,  to  which  the  emperor  re- 
plied, reasonably  enough,  that,  so  long  as  Raymond  enjoyed  posses- 
sion of  fiefs  held  under  the  empire,  excommunication  should  not 


*  Martene  Thesaur.  I.  993.— Epistt.  Saeculi  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  688  (Mon.  Germ. 
Hist.).— Teulet,  Layettes,  II.  314. 

The  subordination  of  the  bishop  to  the  inquisitors  is  further  shown  in  the 
excommunication  of  the  viguier  and  consuls  of  Toulouse,  July  24, 1237,  in  which 
Bishop  Raymond  and  other  prelates  are  mentioned  as  assessors  to  the  inquisitors 
(Doat,  XXI.  148). 


THE    INQUISITION    REINSTATED.  21 

confer  on  him  the  advantage  of  release  from  their  burdens.  King 
Louis  was  also  appealed  to  and  was  urged  to  hasten  the  marriage 
between  his  brother  Alfonse  and  Raymond's  daughter  Jeanne. 
"With  the  spectre  of  all  Europe  in  arms  looming  up  before  him 
Raymond  could  do  nothing  but  yield.  When,  therefore,  the  legate 
summoned  him  to  meet  the  inquisitors  at  Carcassonne  he  meekly 
went  there  and  conferred  with  them  and  the  bishops.  The  con- 
ference ended  with  his  promise  to  return  the  bishop  and  friars  and 
clergy  to  Toulouse,  and  this  promise  he  kept.  The  friars  were 
duly  reinstated  September  4,  after  ten  months  of  exile.  That 
Guillem  Arnaud  returned  with  them  is  a  inatter  of  course.* 

Pierre  Cella  was  still  restricted  to  his  diocese  of  Querci,  and  as 
Guillem  required  a  colleague,  a  concession  was  made  to  popular 
feeling  by  the  legate  in  appointing  a  Franciscan,  it  being  imagined 
that  the  comparative  mildness  of  that  Order  might  serve  to  modify 
the  hatred  felt  towards  the  Dominicans.  The  post  was  conferred 
on  the  provincial  minister,  Jean  de  Notoyra,  but  his  other  duties 
were  too  engrossing,  and  he  substituted  Frere  fitienne  de  Saint-Thi- 
bery,  who  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  modest  and  courteous 
man.  If  hopes  were  entertained  that  thus  the  severity  of  the  In- 
quisition would  be  tempered,  they  were  disappointed.  The  two 
men  Avorked  cordially  together,  with  a  single  purpose  and  perfect 
unanimity,  f 

GuiUem  Arnaud's  activity  was  untiring.  During  his  exile  in 
Carcassonne  he  occupied  himself  with  the  trial  of  the  Seigneur  de 
Niort,  whom  he  sentenced  in  February  or  March,  1236.:}:  In  the 
early  months  of  1237  we  hear  of  him  in  Querci,  co-operating  with 
Pierre  Cella  in  harrying  the  heretics  of  Montauban.  During  his 
absence  there  occurred  a  crowning  mercy  in  Toulouse,  which  threw 
the  heretics  into  a  spasm  of  terror  and  contributed  greatly  to  their 
destruction.  Raymond  Gros,  who  had  been  a  perfected  heretic 
for  more  than  twenty  years,  one  of  the  most  loved  and  trusted 
leaders  of  the  sect,  was  suddenly  converted.  Tradition  relates 
that  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  he  had  been  seized  and  con- 

*  Potthast  No.  10152.— Epistt.  Siecul.  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  700  (Mon.  Germ.  Hist.). 
—Hist.  Diplom.  Frid.  II.  T.  IV.  P.  ii.  p.  913.— Vaissctte,  III.  408.— Pelisso  Chron. 
pp.  40-1. 

t  Pelisso  Chron.  p.  41-2. 

t  Coll.  Boat,  XXI.  163. 


22  LANGUEDOC. 

signed  to  the  stake,  when  the  pro])hetic  spirit  of  St.  Dominic,  fore- 
seeing that  he  would  return  to  the  Church  and  perform  shining 
service  in  the  cause  of  God,  rescued  him  from  the  flames.  On 
April  2,  without  heralding,  he  presented  himself  at  the  Domini- 
can convent,  humbly  begged  to  be  received  into  the  Church,  and 
promised  to  do  whatever  should  be  required  of  him.  With  the 
eagerness  of  an  impassioned  convert  he  proceeded  to  reveal  all 
that  Hfelong  intercourse  with  the  Cathari  had  brought  to  his 
knowledge.  So  full  were  his  recollections  that  several  days  were 
required  to  write  down  all  the  names  and  facts  that  crowded  to 
his  hps.  The  lists  were  long  and  embraced  prominent  nobles  and 
citizens,  confirming  suspicion  in  many  cases,  and  revealing  heresy 
in  other  quarters  where  it  was  wholly  unlooked  for. 

Guillem  Arnaud  hurried  back  from  Montauban  to  take  full  ad- 
vantage of  this  act  of  Providence.  The  heretics  were  stunned. 
None  of  them  dared  to  deny  the  truth  of  the  accusations  made  by 
Kaymond  Gros.  Many  fled,  some  of  whose  names  reappear  in  the 
massacre  of  Avignonet  and  the  final  catastrophe  of  Montsegur. 
Many  recanted  and  furnished  further  revelations.  Long  Usts  were 
made  out  of  those  who  had  been  hereticated  on  their  death-beds, 
and  multitudes  of  corpses  were  exhumed  and  burned,  with  the  re- 
sultant harvest  of  confiscations.  It  is  difficult  to  exaggerate  the 
severity  of  the  blow  thus  received  by  heresy.  Toulouse  w^as  its 
headquarters.  Here  were  the  nobles  and  knights,  the  consuls  and 
rich  burghers  who  had  thus  far  defied  scrutiny  and  had  protected 
their  less  fortunate  comrades.  Now  scattered  and  persecuted, 
forced  to  recant,  or  burned,  the  power  of  the  secret  organization 
was  broken  irrevocably.  We  can  well  appreciate  the  pious  exulta- 
tion of  the  chronicler  as  he  winds  up  his  account  of  the  conster- 
nation and  destruction  thus  visited  upon  the  heretical  community 
— "  Their  names  are  not  written  in  the  Book  of  Life,  but  their  bod- 
ies here  were  burned  and  their  souls  are  tortured  in  hell !"  A 
single  sentence  of  February  19,  1238,  in  which  more  than  twenty 
penitents  were  consigned  c?*.  masse  to  perpetual  imprisonment, 
shows  the  extent  of  the  harvest  and  the  haste  of  the  harvesters.* 


*  Pelisso  Chron.  pp.  43-51. — Coll.  Doat,  XXI.  149.— It  is  probable  that  among 
these  victims  perished  Vigoros  de  Bocona,  a  Catharan  bishop.  Alberic  de  Trois 
Fontaines  places  his  burning  in  Toulouse  in  1233  (Chron.  anu.  1233),  but  there  is 


PROGRESS    OP    THE    INQUISITION.  23 

The  Inquisition  thus  had  overcome  the  popular  horror  which 
its  proceedings  had  excited ;  it  had  braved  the  shock  and  tri- 
umphed over  the  opposition  of  the  secular  authorities,  and  had 
planted  itself  firmly  in  the  soil.  After  the  harvest  had  been  gath- 
ered in  Toulouse  it  was  evident  to  the  indefatigable  activity  of  the 
inquisitors  that  they  could  best  perform  their  functions  by  riding 
circuit  and  holding  assizes  in  all  the  towns  subject  to  their  juris- 
diction, and  this  was  represented  as  a  concession  to  avert  the  com- 
plaints of  those  who  deemed  it  a  hardship  to  be  summoned  to  dis- 
tant places.  Their  incessant  labors  began  to  tell.  Heretics  were 
leaving  the  lands  of  Raymond  at  last  and  seeking  a  refuge  else- 
where. Possibly  some  of  them  found  it  in  the  domains  which  had 
fallen  to  the  crown,  for  in  this  year  we  find  Gregory  scolding  the 
royal  officials  for  their  slackness  of  zeal  in  executing  sentences 
against  powerful  heretics.  Elsewhere,  however,  there  was  no  rest 
for  them.  In  Provence  this  year  Pons  de  TEsparre  made  himself 
conspicuous  for  the  energy  and  effectiveness  with  which  he  con- 
founded the  enemies  of  the  faith ;  while  Montpellier,  alarmed  at 
the  influx  of  heretics  and  their  success  in  propagating  their  errors, 
appealed  to  Gregory  to  favor  them  with  some  assistance  that 
should  effectively  resist  the  rising  tide,  and  Gregory  at  once  or- 
dered his  legate  Jean  de  Vienne  to  go  thither  and  take  the  neces- 
sary measures.* 

The  progress  of  the  Inquisition,  however,  was  not  destined  to 
be  uninterrupted.  Count  Raymond,  apparently  reckless  of  the  nu- 
merous excommunications  under  which  he  lay,  so  far  from  sailing 
for  Palestine  in  March,  had  seized  Marseilles,  which  was  in  rebel- 
lion against  its  suzerain,  the  Count  of  Provence.  This  aroused 
anew  the  indignation  of  Gregory,  not  only  because  of  its  inter- 
ference with  the  war  against  the  Saracens  in  Spain  and  the  Holy 
Land,  but  because  of  the  immunity  which  heretics  would  enjoy 


evidence  of  his  being  still  alive  and  active  in  1235  or  1236  (Doat,  XXII.  222). 
He  was  ordained  a  "filius  major"  in  Montsegur  about  1229,  by  the  Catharan 
bishop,  Guillabert  de  Castres  (Doat,  XXII.  226),  and  his  name  as  that  of  a  re- 
vered teacher  continues  for  many  years  to  occur  in  the  confessions  of  penitents. 

*  Guill.  Pod.  Laur.  c.  43.— Arch,  de  I'fiveche  de  BC'ziers  (Doat,  XXXI.  35).— 
Born.  Guidon.  Libell.  de  Magist.  Ord.  Pruedic.  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VI.  422), — 
Raynald.  ann.  1237,  No.  32. 


2tt  LANOUEDOC. 

during  the  quarrel  of  the  Christian  princes.  He  peremptorily  or- 
dered Raymond  to  desist  from  his  enterprise  on  Marseilles,  and  to 
perform  his  Crusader's  vow.  An  appeal  was  made  to  King  Louis 
and  Queen  Blanche,  whose  intervention  procured  for  Raymond 
not  only  a  postponement  of  the  crusade  for  another  year,  but  an 
order  to  the  legate  empowering  him  to  grant  the  count's  request 
to  take  the  Inquisition  entirely  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Domini- 
cans, if,  on  investigation,  he  should  find  justification  for  Raymond's 
assertion  that  they  were  actuated  by  hatred  towards  himself. 
Fresh  troubles  had  arisen  at  Toulouse.  July  24,  1237,  the  inquis- 
itors had  again  excommunicated  the  viguier  and  consuls,  because 
they  had  not  arrested  and  burned  Alaman  de  Roaix  and  some 
other  heretics,  condemned  in  absentia^  and  Raymond  was  resolved, 
if  possible,  to  relieve  himself  and  his  subjects  from  the  cruel  op- 
pression to  which  they  were  exposed.* 

In  this  his  efforts  were  crowned  with  most  unlooked-for  suc- 
cess. May  13, 1238,  he  obtained  a  suspension  for  three  months  of 
all  inquisitorial  proceedings,  during  which  time  his  envoys  sent  to 
Gregory  were  to  be  heard.  They  seem  to  have  used  most  persua- 
sive arguments,  for  Gregory  wrote  to  the  Bishop  of  Toulouse  to 
continue  the  suspension  until  the  new  legate,  the  Cardinal-bishop 
of  Palestrina,  should  examine  into  the  complaints  against  the 
Dominicans  and  consider  the  advisability  of  granting  Raymond's 
request  that  the  business  of  persecution  should  be  confined,  as  for- 
merly, to  the  bishops.  Raymond's  crusade  was  also  reduced  to 
three  years,  to  be  performed  voluntarily,  provided  he  would  give 
to  King  Louis  sufficient  security  that  he  would  sail  the  following 
year :  by  performing  this,  and  making  amends  for  the  wrongs  in- 
flicted on  the  Church,  he  was  to  earn  absolution  from  his  numer- 
ous excommunications,  t 

The  temporary  suspension  was  unexpectedly  prolonged,  for, 


*  Epistt.  Sfficuli  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  706  (Mon.  Germ.  Hist.).— Potthast  No.  10357, 
10361.— Raynald.  ann.  1237,  No.  33,  37.— Teulet,  Layettes,  II.  339,  No.  2514.— 
Vaissette,  III.  410.— Coll.  Doat,  XXI.  146. 

A  deposition  of  Raymond  Jean  of  Albi,  April  30, 1238  (Doat,  XXIII.  273), 
probably  marks  the  term  of  the  activity  of  the  Inquisition  before  its  suspension. 

t  Teulet,  Layettes,  IL  377,  386.— Epistt.  Saeculi  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  731  (Mon. 
Germ.  Hist.).— Raynald.  ann.  1239,  No.  71-3.— Arch,  du  Vatican  T.  XIX.  (Ber- 
ger,  Actes  d'Innocent  IV.  p.  xix.). 


THE   INQUISITION    SUSPENDED    AND    RESTORED.    25 

owing  to  hostilities  with  Frederic  II.,  tlie  cardinal-legate's  depart- 
ure was  postponed  for  a  year.  "When  at  last  he  came,  in  1239,  he 
brought  special  orders  to  the  inquisitors  to  obey  his  commands. 
What  investigation  he  made  and  what  were  his  conclusions  we 
have  no  means  of  knowing,  but  this  at  least  is  certain,  that  until 
late  in  1241  the  Inquisition  was  effectually  muzzled.  No  traces 
remain  of  its  activity  during  these  years,  and  Catholic  and  Catha- 
ran  alike  could  draw  a  freer  breath,  reUeved  of  apprehension  from 
its  ever-present  supervision  and  the  seemingly  superhuman  energy 
of  the  friars.* 

We  can  readily  conjecture  the  reasons  which  impelled  its  re- 
instatement. Doubtless  the  bishops  were  as  negligent  as  of  old, 
and  looked  after  their  temporalities  to  the  exclusion  of  their  duties 
in  preserving  the  purity  of  the  faith.  Doubtless,  too,  the  heretics, 
encouraged  by  virtual  toleration,  grew  bolder,  and  cherished  hopes 
of  a  retm'n  to  the  good  old  times,  when,  secure  under  their  native 
princes,  they  could  safely  defy  distant  Paris  and  yet  more  distant 
Rome.  The  condition  of  the  country  was,  in  fact,  by  no  means 
reassuring,  especially  in  the  regions  which  had  become  domains  of 
the  cro^vn.  The  land  was  fuU  of  knights  and  barons  who  were 
more  or  less  openly  heretics,  and  who  knew  not  when  the  blow 
might  fall  on  them ;  of  seigneurs  who  had  been  proscribed  for 
heresy;  of  enforced  converts  who  secretly  longed  to  avow  their 
hidden  faith,  and  to  regain  their  confiscated  lands ;  of  penitents 
burning  to  throw  off  the  crosses  imposed  on  them,  and  to  avenge 
the  humiliations  which  they  had  endured.  ^Refugees,  faidits,  and 
heretic  teachers  were  wandering  through  the  mountains,  dwelhng 
in  caverns  and  in  the  recesses  of  the  forests.  Scarce  a  famil>'  but 
had  some  kinsman  to  avenge,  who  had  faUen  in  the  field  or  had 
perished  at  the  stake.  The  lack  of  prisons  and  the  parsimony  of 
the  prelates  had  prevented  a  general  resort  to  imprisonment,  and 
the  burnings  had  not  been  numerous  enough  to  notably  reduce  the 
numbers  of  those  who  were  of  necessity  bitterly  opposed  to  the 
existing  order.  Suddenly,  in  1240,  an  insurrection  appeared,  head- 
ed by  Trencavel,  son  of  that  Viscount  of  Beziers  whom  we  liave 
seen  entrapped  by  Simon  de  Montfort  and  dying  opportunely  in 


*  Arch.  Nat.  de  France  J.  430,  No.  19,  20.  —  Guill.  Pod.  Laurent,  c.  43.  — 
Vaissctte,  III.  411. 


26  LANGUEDOC. 

his  hands,  not  without  suspicion  of  poison.  He  brought  with  him 
from  Catalonia  troops  of  proscribed  knights  and  gentlemen,  and 
was  greeted  enthusiastically  by  the  vassals  and  subjects  of  his 
house,  (/ount  Raymond,  his  cousin,  held  aloof ;  but  his  ambigu- 
ous conduct  showed  ])laiidy  that  he  was  prepared  to  act  on  either 
side  as  success  or  defeat  might  render  advisable.  At  first  the  ris- 
ing seemed  to  prosper.  Trencavel  laid  siege  to  his  ancestral  town 
of  Carcassonne,  and  the  spirit  of  his  followers  was  shown  when, 
on  the  surrender  of  the  suburb,  they  slaughtered  in  cold  blood 
thirty  ecclesiastics  who  had  received  solemn  assurance  of  free 
egress  to  Narbonne.* 

It  required  but  a  small  force  of  royal  troops  under  Jean  de 
Beaumont  to  crush  the  insurrection  as  quickly  as  it  had  arisen, 
and  to  inflict  a  vengeance  which  virtually  annihilated  the  petite 
noblesse  of  the  region  ;  but,  nevertheless,  the  lesson  w^hich  it  taught 
was  not  to  be  neglected.  The  civil  order,  as  now  established  in 
the  south  of  France,  evidently  rested  in  the  religious  order,  and 
the  maintenance  of  this  required  hands  more  vigorous  and  watch- 
ful than  those  of  the  self-seeldng  prelates,  A  great  assembly  of 
the  Cathari  held  in  1241,  on  the  bank  of  the  Larneta,  under  the 
presidency  of  Aymeri  de  Collet,  heretic  Bishop  of  Albi,  showed 
how  bold  they  had  become,  and  how  confidently  the}^  looked  to 
the  future.  Church  and  State  both  could  see  now,  if  not  before, 
that  the  Inquisition  was  a  necessary  factor  in  securing  to  both  the 
advantages  gained  in  the  crusades.f 

Gregory  IX.,  the  founder  of  the  Inquisition,  died  August  22, 
1211.  It  is  probable  that,  before  his  death,  he  had  put  an  end  to 
the  suspension  of  the  Inquisition  and  slipped  the  hounds  from  the 
leash,  for  his  immediate  successor,  Celestin  IV.,  enjoyed  a  pontifi- 
cate of  but  nineteen  days  —  from  September  20  to  October  8  — 
and  then  followed  an  interregnum  until  the  election  of  Innocent 
lY.,  June  28, 1213,  so  that  for  nearly  two  years  the  papal  throne 

*  Guill.  Pod.  Laur.  c.  43.— Giiill.  Nangiac.  Gest.  S.  Liidov.  ann.  1239.— Vais- 
sette,  III.  420.— Bern.  Guidon.  Vit.  Gregor.  PP.  IX.  (Muratori  S.  E.  I.  III.  574). 
— Teulet,  Layettes,  II.  457.  It  was  not  until  1247  that  Trencavel  released  the 
consuls  of  Bgziers  from  their  allegiance  to  him.  —  Mascaro,  Libre  de  Memorias, 
ann.  1247. 

t  A.  Molinier  (Vaissette,  fid.  Privat,  VII.  448-61).  —  Douais,  Les  Albigeois, 
Paris,  1879;  Pieces  justif  No.  4. 


THE    SEIGNEURS    DE    NIORT.  27 

was  practically  vacant.  Raymond's  policy,  for  the  moment,  had 
leaned  to^Yards  gratifying  the  papacy,  for  he  desired  from  Gregory 
not  only  the  removal  of  his  four  excommunications  and  forbear- 
ance in  the  matter  of  the  crusade,  but  also  a  dispensation  to  enable 
him  to  carry  out  a  contract  of  marriage  into  which  he  entered 
with  Sanche,  daughter  and  heiress  of  the  Count  of  Provence,  not 
foreseeing  that  Queen  Blanche  would  juggle  him  in  this,  and,  by 
securing  the  brilliant  match  for  her  son  Charles,  found  the  House 
of  Anjou-Provence,  and  win  for  the  royal  family  another  large 
portion  of  the  South.  Full  of  these  projects,  which  promised  so 
well  for  the  rehabilitation  of  his  power,  he  signed,  April  18,  1241, 
with  J  ay  me  I.  of  Aragon,  a  treaty  of  alliance  for  the  defence  of 
the  Holy  See  and  the  Catholic  faith,  and  against  the  heretics. 
Under  such  influences  he  w^as  not  likely  to  oppose  the  renewal  of 
active  persecution.  Besides,  he  had  been  compromised  in  Trenca- 
vel's  insurrection ;  he  had  been  summoned  to  answer  for  his  con- 
duct before  King  Louis,  when,  on  March  14,  he  had  been  forced 
to  take  an  oath  to  banish  from  his  lands  the  faidits  and  enemies 
of  the  king,  and  to  capture  without  delay  the  castle  of  Montse- 
gur,  the  last  refuge  of  heresy.* 

The  case  of  the  Seigneurs  de  Niort,  powerful  nobles  of  Fenouil- 
ledes,  who  had  taken  part  in  Trencavel's  insurrection,  is  interest- 
ing from  the  light  which  it  throws  upon  the  connection  between 
the  religion  and  the  politics  of  the  time,  the  difficulties  which  the 
Inquisition  experienced  in  dealing  with  stubborn  heresy  and  patri- 
otism, and  the  damage  inflicted  on  the  heretic  cause  by  the  abor- 
tive revolt.  The  three  brothers — Guillem  Guiraud,  Bernard  Otho, 
and  Guiraud  Bernard — w^ith  their  mother,  Esclarmonde,  had  long 
been  a  quarry  which  both  the  inquisitors  and  the  royal  seneschal 
of  Carcassonne  had  been  eager  to  capture.  Guillem  had  earned 
the  reputation  of  a  valiant  knight  in  the  wars  of  the  crusades,  and 
the  brothers  had  managed  to  hold  their  castles  and  their  power 
through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  the  time.  In  the  general  inquisition 
made  by  Cardinal  Romano  in  1 229  they  were  described  as  among 
the  chief  leaders  of  the  heretics,  and  the  Council  of  Toulouse,  at 
the  same  time,  denounced  two  of  them  as  enemies  of  the  faitii, 
and  declared  them  excommunicate  if  they  did  not  submit  within 


•  D'Achery  Spicileg.  III.  621.— Vaissette,  III.  424;  Pr.  400. 


28  .  LANGUEDOC. 

fifteen  days.  In  1233  we  hear  of  their  having,  not  long  before, 
laid  waste  with  fire  and  sword  the  territories  of  Pierre  Amiel, 
Archbishop  of  Is^arbonne,  and  they  had  assailed  and  wounded  him 
while  on  his  way  to  the  Holy  See,  an  exploit  which  led  Gregory 
IX.  to  order  the  archbishop,  in  conjunction  with  the  Bishop  of 
Toulouse,  to  proceed  against  them  energetically,  while  at  the  same 
time  he  invoked  the  secular  arm  by  a  pressing  command  to  Count 
Eaymond.  It  was  probably  under  this  authority  that  Bishop 
Raymond  du  Fauga  and  the  Provost  of  Toulouse  held  an  inquest 
on  them,  in  which  was  taken  the  testimony  of  Pierre  Amiel  and 
of  one  hundred  and  seven  other  witnesses.  The  evidence  was  con- 
flicting. The  archbishop  swore  at  great  length  as  to  the  misdeeds 
of  his  enemies.  They  were  all  heretics.  At  one  time  they  kept 
in  their  Castle  of  Dourne  no  less  than  thirty  perfected  heretics, 
and  they  had  procured  the  assassination  of  Andre  Chaulet,  Senes- 
chal of  Carcassonne,  because  he  had  endeavored  to  obtain  evidence 
against  them.  Other  witnesses  were  equally  emphatic.  Bernard 
Otho  on  one  occasion  had  silenced  a  priest  in  his  own  church,  and 
had  replaced  him  in  the  pulpit  with  a  heretic,  who  had  preached 
to  the  congregation.  On  the  other  hand,  there  were  not  wanting 
witnesses  who  boldly  defended  them.  The  preceptor  of  the  Hos- 
pital at  Puysegur  swore  to  the  orthodoxy  of  Bernard  Otho,  and 
declared  that  what  he  had  done  for  the  faith  and  for  peace  had 
caused  the  death  of  a  thousand  heretics.  A  priest  swore  to  having 
seen  him  assist  in  capturing  heretics,  and  an  archdeacon  declared 
that  he  would  not  have  remained  in  the  land  but  for  the  army 
which  Bernard  raised  after  the  death  of  the  late  Idng,  adding 
that  he  beheved  the  prosecution  arose  rather  from  hate  than  from 
charity.  Nothing  came  of  this  attempt,  and  in  1234  we  meet 
with  Bernard  Otho  as  a  witness  to  a  transaction  between  the  royal 
Seneschal  of  Carcassonne  and  the  Monastery  of  Alet ;  but  when 
the  Inquisition  was  estabhshed  it  was  promptly  brought  to  bear 
on  the  nobles  who  persisted  in  maintaining  their  feudal  indepen- 
dence in  spite  of  the  fact  that  their  immediate  suzerain  was  now 
the  king.  In  1235  Guillem  Arnaud,  the  inquisitor,  while  in  Car- 
cassonne, ^yiih  the  Archdeacon  of  Carcassonne  as  assistant,  cited 
the  three  brothers  and  their  mother  to  answer  before  him.  Ber- 
nard Otho  and  Guillem  obeyed  the  summons,  but  would  confess 
nothing.      Then,  the  seneschal   seized  them ;   under  compulsion 


THE    SEIGNEURS    DE    NIORT.  ^29 

Guillera  made  confession  ample  to  warrant  the  inquisitor  in  sen- 
tencing him  to  perpetual  prison  (March  2,  1236),  while  Bernard, 
remaining  obdurate,  was  condemned  as  a  contumacious  heretic 
(February  13,  1236),  and  the  seneschal  made  preparations  to  burn 
him.  Guiraud  and  his  mother,  Esclarmonde,  were  further  con- 
demned, March  2,  for  contumacious  absence.  Guiraud,  however, 
who  had  wisely  kept  at  large,  began  to  fortify  his  castles  and 
make  warlike  demonstrations  so  formidable  that  the  Frenchmen 
scattered  through  the  land  took  alarm.  The  Marechal  de  la 
Foi,  Levis  of  Mirepoix,  stood  firm,  but  the  rest  so  worked  upon 
the  seneschal  that  the  brothers  were  released,  and  the  inquisi- 
tors had  only  the  barren  satisfaction  of  condemning  the  whole 
family  on  paper — a  disappointment  alleviated,  it  is  true,  by  gath- 
ering for  the  stake  a  rich  harvest  of  less  formidable  heretics, 
both  clerks  and  laymen.  Equally  vain  was  an  effort  made  two 
years  later  by  the  inquisitors  to  compel  Count  Eaymond  to  carry 
out  their  sentence  by  confiscating  the  lands  of  the  contumacious 
nobles,  but  the  failure  of  Trencavel's  revolt  forced  them  to  sue  for 
peace.  Bernard  Otho  was  again  brought  before  the  Inquisition, 
and  Guillem  de  Niort  made  submission  for  himself  and  brothers, 
surrendering  their  castles  to  the  king  on  condition  that  he  would 
procure  their  reconciliation  with  the  Church,  and  that  of  their 
toother,  nephews,  and  allies,  and,  faihng  to  accomplish  this  by  the 
next  Pentecost,  that  he  would  restore  their  castles  and  grant  them 
a  month  of  truce  to  put  themselves  in  defence.  King  Louis  rati- 
fied the  treaty  in  January,  1241,  but  refused,  when  the  time  came, 
to  restore  the  castles,  only  agreeing  to  pay  over  the  revenues  on 
consideration  that  the  brothers  should  reside  outside  of  Fenouil- 
ledes.  Guillem  died  in  1256,  when  Louis  kept  both  castles  and 
revenues,  under  pretext  that  the  treaty  had  been  a  personal  one 
with  Guillem.  The  new  order  of  things  by  this  time  had  become 
so  firmly  established  that  no  further  resistance  was  to  be  dreaded. 
The  extinction  of  this  powerful  family  is  a  typical  example  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  independence  of  the  local  seigneurie  was 
gradually  broken  down  by  means  of  the  Inquisition,  and  the  au- 
thority of  crown  and  Church  was  extended  over  the  land.* 


•  Guillem  de  Tudela  V.  8980,  9183.  —  Tr6sor  des  Chartcs  du  Roi  a  Carcas- 
sonne (Doat,  XXII.  34-49).— Vaissette,  £d.  Privat,  VIII.  975.— Tculet,  Layettes, 


30  L  A  N  G  U  E  D  O  C. 

Under  the  reaction  consequent  upon  Trencavel's  failure,  and 
emboldened  by  the  ruin  of  the  local  protectors  of  the  people,  the 
inquisitors  returned  to  their  work  with  sharpened  zeal  and  re- 
doubled energy.  Chance  has  preserved  for  us  a  record  of  sen- 
tences pronounced  by  Pierre  Cella,  during  a  circuit  of  a  few 
months  in  C^uerci,  from  Advent,  1241,  to  Ascension,  1242,  which 
affords  us  a  singularly  instructive  insight  into  one  phase  of  inquis- 
itorial operations.  We  have  seen  that,  when  an  inquisitor  visited 
a  town,  he  proclaimed  a  "  time  of  grace,"  during  which  those  who 
voluntarily  came  forward  and  confessed  were  spared  the  harsher 
punishments  of  prison,  confiscation,  or  the  stake,  and  that  the  In- 
quisition found  this  expedient  exceedingly  fruitful,  not  only  in  the 
number  of  penitents  Avhich  it  brought  in,  but  in  the  testimony 
which  was  gathered  concerning  the  more  contumacious.  The  rec- 
ord in  question  consists  of  cases  of  this  kind,  and  its  crowded  cal- 
endar justifies  the  esteem  in  which  the  method  was  held.* 

Summarized,  the  record  shows — 

In  Gourdon 219  sentences  pronounced  in  Advent,  1241.       ' 

In  Montcucq....    84         "  "  "  Lent,  1242. 

In  Sauveterre....      5. 

In  Belcayre 7. 

In  Moutauban...  254  sentences  pronounced  in  week  before  Ascension  (May  21- 

28,  1242). 
In  Moissac 99         "  "  "  week  of  Ascension  (May  28- June 

5,  1242). 
InMontpezat....    22         »  "  "  Lent,  1242. 

In  Montaut 23         "  "  "       "         " 

InCastelnau....    11         "  "  "       "        " 

Total 724 


II.  252,  No.  2241.— Vaissette,  IIL  383,  422-3;  Pr.  385,  397-99.— Ripoll  VII.  9.— 
Potthast  No.  9024.— Pelisso  Chron.  pp.  28-9.— Coll.  Doat,  XXL  163-164, 166; 
XXIV.  81. 

*  The  document  is  in  the  Collection  Doat,  XXI.  185  sqq. — Although  it  does 
not  specify  that  the  cases  are  of  voluntary  penitents  within  the  time  of  grace, 
there  is  no  risk  in  assuming  this.  The  penances  are  all  of  the  kind  provided  for 
such  penitents;  and  in  one  case  (fol.  220)  it  is  mentioned  that  the  party  had  not 
come  in  within  the  time,  which  would  infer  that  the  rest  had  done  so.  Besides, 
the  extraordinary  speed  with  which  the  business  was  transacted  is  wholly  in- 
compatible with  prosecutions  of  accused  persons  striving  to  maintain  their  in- 
nocence. 


SENTENCES    OF    PIERRE    CELLA.  31 

Of  these  penitents  four  hundred  and  twenty-seven  were  ordered 
to  make  the  distant  pilgrimage  to  Compostella,  in  the  northAvest- 
ern  corner  of  Spain — some  four  hundred  or  five  hundred  miles  of 
mountainous  roads.  One  hundred  and  eight  were  sent  to  Canter- 
bury, this  pilgrimage,  in  all  but  three  or  four  cases,  being  super- 
imposed on  that  to  Compostella.  Only  two  penitents  were  re- 
quired to  visit  Rome,  but  seventy-nine  were  ordered  to  serve  in  the 
crusades  for  terms  varying  from  one  to  eight  years. 

The  first  thing  that  impresses  one  in  considering  this  record 
is  the  extraordinary  speed  wdth  which  the  work  was  done.  The 
whole  was  despatched  in  six  months,  and  there  is  no  evidence  that 
the  labor  was  continuous  —  in  fact,  it  could  not  have  been  so,  for 
the  inquisitor  had  to  move  from  place  to  place,  to  grant  the  neces- 
sary delays,  and  must  have  been  frequently  interrupted  to  gather 
in  the  results  of  testimony  which  implicated  recusants.  With 
what  reckless  lack  of  consideration  the  penances  were  imposed  is 
shown  by  the  two  hundred  and  nineteen  penitents  of  Gourdon, 
whose  confessions  were  taken  down  and  whose  sentences  were 
pronounced  within  the  four  weeks  of  Advent;  and  even  this  is 
outstripped  by  the  two  hundred  and  fifty-two  of  Montauban,  de- 
spatched in  the  week  before  Ascension,  at  the  rate  of  forty-two 
for  each  working-day.  In  several  cases  two  culprits  are  included 
in  the  same  sentence. 

Even  more  significant  than  this,  however,  are  the  enormous 
numbers — two  hundred  and  nineteen  for  a  small  town  like  Gour- 
don and  eighty-four  for  Montcucq.  The  number  of  these  who 
were  really  heretics,  both  Catharan  and  Waldensian,  is  large, 
and  shows  how  thoroughly  the  population  was  inter])enetrated 
with  heresy.  Even  more,  ho"\vever,  were  good  Catholics  whose 
cases  prove  how  amicably  the  various  sects  associated  together, 
and  how  impossible  it  was  for  the  most  orthodox  to  avoid  the  as- 
sociation with  heretics  which  rendered  him  liable  to  punishment. 
This  friendly  intercourse  is  peculiarly  notable  in  the  case  of  a  priest 
who  confessed  to  having  gone  to  some  heretics  in  a  vineyard, 
where  he  read  in  their  books  and  ate  pears  with  them.  He  was 
rudely  reminded  of  his  indiscretion  by  being  suspended  from  liis 
functions,  sent  to  Compostella  and  thence  to  Rome,  with  letters 
from  the  inquisitors  w^hich  doubtless  were  not  for  his  benefit,  for 
apparently  they  felt  unable  to  decide  Avhat  ought  to  be  done  for 


02  LANGUEDOC. 

an  offence  so  enormous.  Even  the  smallest  derelictions  of  this  sort 
were  rigorously  penanced.  A  citizen  of  Sauveterre  had  seen  three 
heretics  entering  the  house  of  a  sick  man,  and  heard  that  they  had 
hereticated  him,  but  knew  nothing  of  his  own  knowledge,  yet  he 
was  subjected  to  the  disgrace  of  a  penitential  pilgrimage  to  Puy. 
Another,  of  Belcayre,  had  carried  a  message  between  two  heretics, 
and  was  sent  to  Puy,  St.  Gilles,  and  Compostella.  A  physician  of 
Montauban  had  bound  up  the  arm  of  a  heretic  and  was  subjected 
to  the  same  three  pilgrimages,  and  the  same  penance  was  inflicted 
on  a  woman  who  had  simply  eaten  at  a  table  with  heretics.  The 
same  was  prescribed  in  several  cases  of  boatmen  who  had  igno- 
rantly  transported  heretics,  without  recognizing  them  until  the 
voyage  was  under  way  or  finished.  A  woman  who  had  eaten  and 
drunk  with  another  woman  who  she  heard  was  a  heretic  was  sen- 
tenced to  the  pilgrimages  of  Puy  and  St.  Gilles,  and  the  same  pen- 
ance was  ordered  for  a  man  who  had  once  seen  heretics,  and  for  a 
woman  who  had  consulted  a  Waldensian  about  her  sick  son.  The 
Waldenses  had  great  reputation  as  skilful  leeches,  and  two  men 
who  had  called  them  in  for  their  wives  and  children  were  pen- 
anced with  the  pilgrimages  of  Puy,  St.  Gilles,  and  Compostella. 
A  man  who  had  seen  heretics  two  or  three  times,  and  had  already 
purchased  reconciliation  by  a  gift  to  a  monastery,  was  sent  on  a 
long  series  of  pilgrimages,  embracing  both  Compostella  and  Can- 
terbury, besides  wearing  the  yellow  cross  for  a  year.  Another 
was  sent  to  Compostella  because  he  had  once  been  thrown  into 
company  with  heretics  in  a  boat,  although  he  had  left  them  on 
hearing  their  heresies ;  and  yet  another  because,  when  a  boy,  he 
had  spent  part  of  a  day  and  night  with  heretics.  One  who  had 
seen  heretics  when  he  was  twelve  years  old  was  sent  to  Puy; 
while  a  woman  who  had  seen  them  in  her  father's  house  was 
obliged  to  go  to  Puy  and  St.  Gilles.  A  man  who  had  seen  two 
heretics  leaving  a  place  which  he  had  rented  was  sent  to  Compos- 
tella, and  another  who  had  allowed  his  Waldensian  mother  to  visit 
him  and  had  given  her  an  ell  of  cloth  was  forced  to  expiate  it  with 
pilgrimages  to  Puy,  St.  Gilles,  and  Compostella.*  The  list  might 
be  prolonged  almost  indefinitely,  but  these  cases  will  suffice  to 


*  Coll.  Boat,  XXI.  210,  215,  216,  227,  229,  230,  238,  265,  283,  285,  293,  299, 
300,  301,  305,  307,  308,  310. 


POrULAli    TERROR.  33 

show  the  character  of  the  offence  and  the  nature  of  the  grace 
proffered  for  voluntary  confession.  There  is  no  pretence  that  any 
of  these  particular  culprits  themselves  were  not  wholly  orthodox, 
but  the  people  were  to  be  taught  that  the  toleration  which  had 
existed  for  generations  was  at  an  end ;  that  the  neighborly  inter- 
course which  had  estabhshed  itself  between  Catholic  and  Catharan 
and  Waldensian  was  in  itself  a  sin ;  that  the  heretic  was  to  be 
tracked  and  captured  like  a  wild  beast,  or  at  least  to  be  shunned 
like  a  leper. 

"When  such  was  the  measure  meted  out  to  spontaneous  peni- 
tents within  the  time  of  grace,  with  harsher  measures  in  reserve 
for  those  subsequently  detected,  we  can  easily  imagine  the  f eehngs 
inspired  by  the  Inquisition  in  the  whole  population,  without  dis- 
tinction of  creed,  and  the  terror  common  to  all  when  the  rumor 
spread  that  the  inquisitors  were  coming.  Scarce  any  one  but  was 
conscious  of  some  act  —  perhaps  of  neighborly  charity  —  that  ren- 
dered him  a  criminal  to  the  awful  fanaticism  of  Pierre  Cella  or 
Guillem  Arnaud.  The  heretics  themselves  would  look  to  be  im- 
prisoned for  life,  with  confiscation,  or  to  be  burned,  or  sent  to 
Constantinople  to  support  the  tottering  Latin  Empire ;  while  the 
Catholics  were  likely  to  fare  little  better  on  the  distant  pilgrim- 
ages to  which  they  were  sentenced,  even  though  they  were  spared 
the  sterner  punishments  or  the  humiliation  of  the  saffron  cross. 
Such  a  visit  would  bring,  even  to  the  faithful,  the  desolation  of  a 
pestilence.  The  inquisitors  would  pass  calmly  on,  leaving  a  neigh- 
borhood well-nigh  depopulated  —  fathers  and  mothers  despatched 
to  distant  shrines  for  months  or  years,  leaving  dependent  families 
to  starve,  or  harvests  ungathered  to  be  the  prey  of  the  first-comer, 
all  the  relations  of  a  life,  hard  enough  at  the  best,  disturbed  and 
broken  up.  Even  such  a  record  as  that  of  Pierre  Cella's  sentences 
rendered  within  the  time  of  grace  sliows  but  a  portion  of  the  Avork. 
A  year  or  two  later  we  find  the  Council  of  Narbonne  beseechino- 
tlie  inquisitors  to  delay  rendering  sentences  of  incarceration,  be- 
cause the  numbers  of  those  flocking  in  for  reconciliation  after  the 
expiration  of  the  term  of  grace  were  so  great  that  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  raise  funds  for  their  maintenance,  or  to  find  stones  enough, 
even  in  that  mountainous  land,  to  build  prisons  to  contain  them.* 


*  Conoil.  Narbonn.  ami.  1344  c.  19. 

TL— 3 


34  L  A  N  G  U  E  D  O  C. 

That  a  whole  vicinage,  when  it  had  timely  notice,  should  bind  it- 
self in  a  league  to  defeat  the  purpose  of  the  inquisitors,  as  at  Cas- 
tolnaudary,  must  have  been  a  frequent  experience ;  that,  sooner 
or  later,  despair  should  bring  about  a  catastrophe  like  that  of 
Avignonet  was  inevitable. 

Montsegur  for  3^ears  had  been  the  Mount  Tabor  of  the  Cathari 
— the  place  of  refuge  in  which,  as  its  name  implies,  they  could  feel 
secure  when  safety  could  be  hoped  for  nowhere  else.  It  had  been 
destroyed,  but  early  in  the  century  Eaymond  de  Pereille  had  re- 
built it,  and  for  forty  yeixrs  he  held  it  as  an  asylum  for  heretics, 
whom  he  defended  to  the  utmost  of  his  ability.  In  1232  the  Catha- 
ran  bishops  Tento  of  Agen  and  Guillabert  de  Castres  of  Toulouse, 
w^ith  a  number  of  ministers,  foreseeing,  in  the  daily  increasing 
pressure  of  persecution,  the  necessity  of  some  stronghold  which 
should  serve  as  an  asylum,  arranged  with  Raymond  that  he  should 
receive  and  shelter  all  fugitives  of  the  sect  and  guard  the  common 
treasure  to  be  de]3osited  there.  His  castle,  situated  in  the  territo- 
ries of  the  marshals  of  Mirepoix,  had  never  opened  its  gates  to 
the  Frenchmen.  Its  almost  inaccessible  peak  had  been  sedulously 
strengthened  with  all  that  military  experience  could  suggest  or 
earnest  devotion  could  execute.  Ever  since  the  persecutions  of 
the  Inquisition  commenced  we  hear  of  those  who  fled  to  Montse- 
gur when  they  found  the  inquisitor's  hand  descending  upon  them. 
Dispossessed  knights,  faidits  of  all  kinds,  brought  their  swords  to 
its  defence ;  Catharan  bishops  and  ministers  sought  it  when  hard 
pressed,  or  made  it  a  resting-place  in  their  arduous  and  dangerous 
mission -work.  Raymond  de  Pereille  himself  sought  its  shelter 
when,  compromised  by  the  revelations  of  Raymond  Gros,  he  fled 
from  Toulouse,  in  1237,  with  his  wife  Corba;  the  devotion  of  his 
race  to  heresy  being  further  proved  by  the  fate  of  his  daughter 
Esclarmonde,  who  perished  for  her  faith  at  the  stake,  and  by  the 
Catharan  episcopate  of  his  brother  Arnaud  Roger.  Such  a  strong- 
hold in  the  hands  of  desperate  men,  fired  with  the  fiercest  fanati- 
cism, was  a  menace  to  the  stability  of  the  new  order  in  the  State ; 
to  the  Church  it  was  an  accursed  spot  whence  heresy  might  at 
any  moment  burst  forth  to  overspread  the  land  again.  Its  de- 
struction had  long  been  the  desire  of  all  good  Catholics,  and  Ray- 
mond's pledge  to  King  Louis,  March  1-1, 12-115  to  capture  it  had 


THE    MASSACRE    OF   AYIGNONET.  35 

been  one  of  the  conditions  on  which  his  suspicions  relations  with 
Trencavel  had  been  condoned.  In  fact,  he  made  some  show  of  be- 
sieging it  during  the  same  year,  but  success  w^ould  have  been  most 
damaging  to  the  plans  which  he  was  nursing,  and  his  efforts  can 
scarce  have  been  more  than  a  cover  for  mihtary  preparations  des- 
tined to  a  far  different  object.  The  French  army,  after  the  sup- 
pression of  the  rising,  also  laid  siege  to  Montsegur,  but  were  un- 
able to  effect  its  reduction.* 

On  Ascension  night,  12-i2,  while  Pierre  Cella  was  tranquilly 
winding  up  his  work  at  Montauban,  the  world  was  startled  with 
the  news  that  a  holocaust  of  the  terrible  inquisitors  had  been  made 
at  Avignonet,  a  little  town  ahoui  twelve  leagues  from  Toulouse, 
The  stern  Guillem  Arnaud  and  the  courteous  Etienne  de  Saint- 
Thibery  were  making,  like  their  colleague  Pierre  Cella,  a  circuit 
through  the  district  subjected  to  their  mercy.  Some  of  their  sen- 
tences which  have  been  preserved  show  that  in  November,  1241, 
they  were  laboring  at  Lavaur  and  at  Saint-Paul  de  Caujoux,  and 
in  the  spring  of  1242  they  came  to  Avignonet. f  Eaymond  d'Al- 
faro  was  its  bailli  for  the  count,  who  was  his  uncle  through  his 
mother,  Guillemetta,  a  natural  daughter  of  Eaymond  VI.  When 
he  heard  that  the  inquisitors  and  their  assistants  were  coming  he 
lost  no  time  in  preparing  for  tlieir  destruction.  A  swift  messen- 
ger was  despatched  to  the  heretics  of  Montsegur,  and  in  answer  to 
his  summons  Pierre  Roger  of  Mirepoix,  with  a  number  of  knights 
and  their  retainers,  started  at  once.  They  halted  in  the  forest  of 
Gaiac,  near  A^agnonet,  where  food  was  brought  them,  and  they 
were  joined  by  about  thirty  armed  men  of  the  vicinage,  who  wait- 
ed with  them  till  after  nightfall.  Had  this  plot  failed,  d'Alfaro 
had  arranged  another  for  an  ambuscade  on  the  road  to  Castelnau- 
dary,  and  the  fact  that  so  extensive  a  conspiracy  could  be  organ- 
ized on  the  spot,  without  finding  a  traitor  to  betray  it,  shows  how 
general  was  the  hate  that  had  been  earned  by  the  cruel  work  of 
the  Inquisition.  Not  less  significant  is  the  fact  that  on  their  re- 
turn to  Montsegur  the  murderers  were  hospitably  entertained  at 
the  Chateau  de  Saint-FeUx  by  a  priest  who  was  cognizant  of  their 
bloody  deed. 

The  victims  came  unsuspectingly  to  the  trap.     There  were 

*  Pelisso  Chiou.  pp.  49-50.  —  Coll.  Doat,  XXII.  216-17,  224,  228.  —  Schmidt, 
Cathares  I.  315,  334.  t  Coll.  Doat,  XXI.  153,  155,  158. 


36  L  A  N  G  U  E  D  O  C. 

eleven  in  all.  The  t^yo  inquisitors,  with  two  Dominican  friars, 
and  one  Franciscan,  the  Benedictine  Prior  of  Avignonet,  llayraond 
de  Costiran,  Archdeacon  of  Lezat,  a  former  troubadour,  of  whose 
verses  only  a  single  obscene  song  remains,  a  clerk  of  the  archdea- 
con, a  notary,  and  two  apparitors  —  in  all  a  court  fully  furnished 
for  the  despatch  of  business.  They  were  hospitably  received  and 
housed  in  the  castle  of  the  count,  where  on  the  morrow  they  were 
to  open  their  dread  tribunal  for  the  trembUng  inhabitants.  When 
darkness  came  a  selected  band  of  twelve,  armed  with  axes,  left 
the  forest  and  stole  cautiously  to  a  postern  of  the  castle,  where 
they  were  met  by  Golairan,  a  comrade  of  d'Alfaro,  who  assured 
himself  that  all  was  right,  and  returned  to  see  what  the  inquisitors 
were  doing.  Coming  back,  he  reported  that  they  were  drinking ; 
but  a  second  visit,  after  an  interval,  brought  the  welcome  news  that 
they  were  going  to  bed.  As  though  apprehensive  of  danger,  they 
had  remained  together  in  the  great  hall,  and  had  barricaded  the 
door.  The  gate  was  opened,  the  men  of  Montsegur  were  admit- 
ted and  were  joined  by  d'Alfaro,  armed  with  a  mace,  and  twenty- 
five  men  of  Avignonet,  and  the  fact  that  an  esquire  in  the  ser\^ce 
of  the  inquisitors  was  with  him  indicates  that  there  was  treachery 
at  work.  The  hall-door  was  quickly  broken  down,  the  wild  band 
of  assassins  rushed  in,  and,  after  despatching  their  victims,  there 
was  a  fierce  chorus  of  gratified  vengeance,  each  man  boasting  of 
his  share  in  the  bloody  deed  —  d'Alfaro  especially,  who  shouted 
"  Va  he,  esta  le^''  and  claimed  that  his  mace  had  done  its  full  duty 
in  the  murderous  work.  Its  crushing  of  Guillem  Arnaud's  skull 
had  deprived  Pierre  Koger  de  Mirepoix,  the  second  in  command 
at  Montsegur,  of  the  drinking-cup  which  he  had  demanded  as  his 
reward  for  the  assistance  furnished.  The  plunder  of  the  victims 
was  eagerly  shared  between  the  assassins  —  their  horses,  books, 
garments  —  even  to  their  scapulars.  When  the  news  reached 
Home,  the  College  of  Cardinals  made  haste  to  express  their  behef 
that  the  victims  had  become  blessed  martyrs  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
one  of  the  first  acts  of  Innocent  IV.,  after  his  installation  in  June, 
1243,  was  to  repeat  this  declaration ;  but  they  never  Avere  canon- 
ized, in  spite  of  frequent  requests  to  the  Holy  See,  and  of  the  nu- 
merous miracles  which  attested  their  sanctity  in  the  popular  cult, 
until,  in  1866,  Pius  IX.  gave  them  tardy  recognition.^ 

•  Vaissette,  III.  431 ;  Pr.  438-43.  —  Doat,  XXIV.  160.  —  Guill.  Pod.  Laur.  c. 


THE   MASSACRE    A    BLUNDER.  37 

Like  the  murder  of  the  legate  Pierre  de  Castelnau,  in  1208,  the 
massacre  of  Avignonet  was  a  fatal  error.  Its  violation  of  the  tra- 
ditional sanctity  of  the  ecclesiastic  sent  a  thrill  of  horror  even 
among  those  who  had  small  sympathy  with  the  cruelty  of  the  In- 
quisition, while  the  deliberateness  of  its  planning  and  its  unspar- 
ing ferocity  gave  color  to  the  belief  that  heresy  was  only  to  be  • 
extirpated  by  force.  Sympathy,  indeed,  for  a  time  might  well 
change  sides,  for  the  massacre  was  practically  unavenged.  Frere 
Ferrer,  the  Inquisitor  of  Carcassonne,  made  due  inquest  into  the 
affair,  and  after  the  capture  of  Montsegur,  in  1244,  some  of  the 
participants  confessed  all  the  details,  but  the  real  culprits  escaped. 
Count  Kaymond,  it  is  true,  when  he  had  leisure  from  pressing 
business,  hanged  a  few  of  the  underlings,  but  we  find  Raymond 
d'Alfaro,  in  1247,  promoted  to  be  Yiguier  of  Toulouse,  and  repre- 
senting his  master  in  the  proceedings  with  regard  to  the  burial 
of  the  old  count,  and,  finally,  he  was  one  of  the  nine  witnesses  to 
Raymond's  last  wiU.  Another  ringleader,  Guillem  du  Mas-Saintes- 
Puelles,  is  recorded  as  taking  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  Count  Al- 
fonse,  in  1249,  after  the  death  of  Raymond.  Guillem's  participa- 
tion in  the  murders  has  special  interest,  as  showing  the  antagonism 
created  by  the  violence  of  the  Inquisition,  for  in  1233,  as  BaiUi  of 
Lavaur,  he  had  dutifully  seized  a  number  of  heretics  and  carried 
them  to  Toulouse,  where  they  were  promptly  burned.* 

The  massacre  of  Avignonet  came  at  a  time  peculiarly  unfortu- 
nate for  Count  Raymond,  who  was  nursing  comprehensive  and 
far-reaching  plans,  then  ripe  for  execution,  for  the  rehabilitation 
of  his  house  and  the  independence  of  his  land.  He  could  not  es- 
cape the  responsibility  for  the  catastrophe  which  public  opinion 

45. — Pcyrat,  Lcs  Albigeois  ct  I'Inquisition,  II.  304. — Dicz,  Leben  iind  Werke  tier 
Troubadours,  p.  491.  —  RipoU  I.  117.  —  Analccta  Frauciscana,  Quaracchi,  1887, 
II.  65. 

The  Catholic  tradition  at  Avignonet  was  that  some  of  the  inquisitors'  follow- 
ers escaped  to  the  church,  where  they  were  massacred  with  a  number  of  Cntliolic 
inhabitants  who  had  sought  refuge  there.  In  consequence  of  tliis  pollution  the 
church  remained  unused  for  forty  years,  and  the  anniversary  of  its  reconciliation, 
on  the  first  Tuesday  in  June,  was  still,  in  the  last  century,  celebrated  with  illu- 
minations and  rejoicing  as  a  local  feast  (Bremond  ap.  RipoU  1.  c). 

*  Vaissette,  III.  45G. — Guill.  Pod.  Laur.  c.  45. — Molinier  np.  Pelisso  Chron.  p 
19  _Molinier,  L'Ensevelissement  de  Raimond  VI.  p.  21. — Vaissette,  fid.  Privat, 
VIII.  1358.      ' 


38  LANGUEDOC. 

everywhere  attached  to  him.  Although  he  had  recently,  on  March 
14,  solemnly  sworn  to  persecute  heresy  with  his  whole  strength 
when,  apparently  sick  unto  death,  he  had  sought  absolution  at  the 
hands  of  the  episcopal  official  of  Agen,  yet  he  was  known  to  be 
hostile  to  the  Dominicans  as  inquisitors,  and  had  bitterly  opposed 
the  restoration  of  their  functions.  On  May  1,  just  four  weeks  be- 
fore the  event,  he  had  made  a  solemn  declaration  in  the  presence 
of  numerous  prelates  and  nobles  to  the  effect  that  he  had  appealed 
to  Rome  against  the  commission  of  Dominican  inquisitors  by  the 
provincial  in  his  territories,  and  that  he  intended  to  prosecute  that 
appeal.  He  protested  that  he  earnestly  desired  the  eradication  of 
heresy,  and  urged  the  bishops  to  exercise  energetically  their  ordi- 
nary power  to  that  end,  promising  his  full  support  to  them  and 
the  execution  of  the  law  both  as  to  confiscation  and  the  death- 
penalty.  He  would  even  accept  the  friars  as  inquisitors  provided 
they  acted  independently  of  their  Orders,  and  not  under  the  au- 
thority of  their  provincials.  One  of  his  baillis  even  threatened,  in 
the  church  of  Moissac,  seizure  of  person  and  property  for  all  who 
should  submit  to  the  penalties  imposed  by  the  inquisitors,  as  they 
were  not  authorized  by  the  count  to  administer  justice.  Such  being 
his  position,  it  was  inevitable  that  he  should  be  regarded  as  an  accom- 
pUce  in  the  murders,  and  that  the  cause  which  he  represented  should 
suffer  greatly  in  the  revulsion  of  public  feeling  which  it  occasioned.* 
Raymond  had  been  busy  in  effecting  a  widespread  alliance 
which  should  wring  from  the  House  of  Capet  its  conquests  of  the 
last  quarter  of  a  centur}^  He  had  been  joined  by  the  Kings  of 
England,  Castile,  and  Aragon,  and  the  Count  de  la  Marche,  and 
everything  bid  fair  for  his  reconquest  of  his  old  domains.  The 
massacre  of  Avignonet  was  a  most  untoward  precursor  of  the  re- 
volt which  burst  forth  immediately  afterwards.  It  shook  the 
fidelity  of  some  of  his  vassals,  who  withdrew  their  support ;  and, 
to  counteract  its  impression,  he  felt  obliged  to  convert  his  sham 
siege  of  Montsegur  into  an  active  one,  thus  employing  troops 
which  he  could  ill  spare.  Yet  the  rising,  for  a  while,  promised 
success,  and  Raymond  even  reassumed  his  old  title  of  Duke  of 


*  Teulet,  Layettes,  II.  466.  —  Maj.  Cliron.  Lemovicens.  ann.  1242  (Bouquet, 
XXI.  765).— Vaissette,  III.  Pr.  410.— Guill.  Pod.  Laur.  c.  45.— Schmidt,  Catlia- 
res,  I.  320.— Bern.  Guidon.  Vit.  Coelestin.  PP.  IV.  (Muratori  S.  R.  I.  III.  589;. 


TRIUMPH    OF  TPIE    INQUISITION.  39 

Narbonne.  King  Louis,  however,  was  equal  to  the  occasion,  and 
allowed  the  allies  no  time  to  concentrate  their  forces.  His  victo- 
ries over  the  English  and  Gascons  at  Taillebourg  and  Saintes,  July 
19  and  23,  deprived  Kaymond  of  all  hope  of  assistance  from  that 
quarter.  Pestilence  forced  the  withdrawal  of  the  main  army  of 
Louis,  but  a  force  under  the  veteran  Imbert  de  Beaujeu  operated 
actively  against  Ka3^mond,  who,  without  help  from  his  allies  and 
deserted  by  many  of  his  vassals,  was  obliged  to  lay  down  his  arms, 
December  22.  When  suing  for  peace  he  pledged  himself  to  extir- 
pate heresy  and  to  punish  the  assassins  of  Avignonet  Avith  an  effu- 
siveness which  shows  the  importance  attached  to  these  conditions. 
The  sagacity  and  moderation  of  King  Louis  granted  him  easy 
terms,  but  one  of  the  stipulations  of  settlement  was  that  every 
male  inhabitant  over  the  age  of  fifteen  should  take  an  oath  to 
assist  the  Church  against  heresy,  and  the  king  against  Ea}'Tnond, 
in  case  of  another  revolt.  Thus  the  purity  of  the  faith  and  the 
supremacy  of  the  foreign  domination  were  once  again  recognized 
as  inseparably  allied.* 

The  triumph  of  both  had  been  secured.  This  ended  the  last 
serious  effort  of  the  South  to  recover  its  independence.  Hence- 
forth, under  the  treaty  of  Paris,  it  was  to  pass  irrevocably  into 
the  hands  of  the  stranger,  and  the  Inquisition  was  to  have  unre- 
stricted o])portunity  to  enforce  conformity  in  religion.  It  was  in 
vain  that  Raymond  again,  at  the  Council  of  Beziers,  April  20, 
1243,  summoned  the  bishops  of  his  dominions — those  of  Toulouse, 
Agen,  Cahors,  Albi,  and  Rodez  —  urging  them  personally  or 
through  proper  deputies,  whether  Cistercians,  Dominicans,  or 
Franciscans,  to  make  diligent  inquisition  after  heresy,  and  pledged 
the  assistance  of  the  secular  arm  for  its  extirpation.  It  was  equally 
in  vain  that,  immediately  on  the  accession  of  Innocent  IV.,  in 
June,  a  deputation  of  Dominicans,  frightened  by  the  warning  of 
Avignonet,  earnestly  alleged  many  reasons  why  the  dangerous 
burden  shoidd  be  lifted  from  their  shoulders.  The  pope  peremp- 
torily refused,  and  ordered  them  to  continue  their  holy  labors, 
even  at  the  risk  of  martyrdom.f 


*  Vaissette,  III.  434-7,  439.  — Teulet,  Layettes,  II.  470,  481-2,  484,  487,  488, 
489,  493,  495,  etc. 

t  Vaissette,  III.  Pr.  435.  —  Ripoll  I.  118.     Innocent's  bull  is  dated  July  10, 


40  LANGUEDOC. 

Despite  this  single  exhibition  of  hesitation  and  weakness,  the 
Order  was  not  lacking  in  men  whose  eager  fanaticism  rendered 
them  fully  prepared  to  accept  the  perilous  post.  The  peril,  in- 
deed, was  apparent  rather  than  real  —  it  had  passed  away  in  the 
revulsion  which  followed  the  useless  bloodshed  of  Avignonet  and 
the  failure  of  Raymond's  rebellion.  There  was  a  rising  tide  in 
favor  of  orthodoxy.  A  confraternity  organized  in  October,  1243, 
by  Durand,  Bishop  of  Albi,  is  probably  only  the  expression  of 
what  was  going  on  in  many  places.  Organized  under  the  pro- 
tection of  St.  Cecilia,  the  members  of  the  association  pledged 
themselves  not  only  to  mutual  protection,  but  to  aid  the  bishop 
to  execute  justice  on  heretics,  Vaudois  and  their  fautors,  and  to 
defend  inquisitors  as  they  would  their  own  bodies.  Any  member 
suspected  of  heresy  was  to  be  incontinently  ejected,  and  a  reward 
of  a  silver  mark  was  offered  for  every  heretic  captured  and  deliv- 
ered to  the  association.  The  new  pope  had,  moreover,  spoken  in 
no  uncertain  tone.  His  refusal  to  relieve  the  Dominicans  was  ac- 
companied with  a  peremptory  command  to  all  the  prelates  of  the 
region  to  extend  favor,  assistance,  and  protection  to  the  inquisitors 
in  their  toils  and  tribulations.  Any  slackness  in  this  was  freely 
threatened  with  the  papal  vengeance,  Avhile  favor  was  significantly 
promised  as  the  reward  of  zeal.  The  Dominicans  were  urged  to 
fresh  exertion  to  overcome  the  threatened  recrudescence  of  heresy. 
A  new  legate,  Zoen,  Bishop-elect  of  Avignon,  ^vas  also  despatched 
to  Languedoc,  with  instructions  to  act  vigorousl3\  His  predeces- 
sor had  been  complained  of  by  the  inquisitors  for  having,  in  spite 
of  their  remonstrances,  released  many  of  their  prisoners  and  remit- 
ted penances  indiscriminately.  All  such  acts  of  misplaced  mercy 
were  pronounced  void,  and  Zoen  was  ordered  to  reimpose  all  such 
penalties  without  appeal.* 

Still  more  menacing  to  the  heretic  cause  was  the  reconciliation 
at  last  effected  between  Raymond  and  the  papacy.  In  Septem- 
ber, 121:3,  the  count  visited  Ital}^  where  he  had  an  interview  with 
Frederic  II.  in  Apulia,  and  with  Innocent  in  Rome.    For  ten  years 

1243,  within  a  fortuiglit  after  his  election.  The  deputation  had  evidently  been 
sent  to  Celestiu  IV.,  and  the  bull  had  been  prepared  in  advance,  awaiting  the 
election  of  a  successor. 

*  Archives  de  rfevgch6  d'Alhi  (Doat,  XXXI.  47). — Archives  de  I'lnq.  de  Carcas- 
sonne (Doat,  XXXI.  63,  65,  97).— Berger,Eegistres  d'Innocent  IV.  No.  31,  102. 


RAYMOND    WON    OVER.  4,1 

he  had  been  under  excommunication,  and  had  carried  on  an  un- 
availing struggle.  He  could  no  longer  cherish  illusions,  and  was 
doubtless  ready  to  give  whatever  assurances  might  be  required 
of  him.  On  the  other  hand,  the  new  pope  was  free  from  the  pre- 
dispositions which  the  long  strife  had  engendered  in  Gregory  IX. 
There  seems  to  have  been  little  difficulty  in  reaching  an  under- 
standing, to  which  the  good  offices  of  Louis  IX.  powerfully  con- 
tributed. December  2,  Eaymond  Avas  released  from  his  various 
excommunications  ;  January  1, 1244,  the  absolution  was  announced 
to  King  Louis  and  the  prelates  of  the  kingdom,  who  were  ordered 
to  publish  it  in  all  the  churches,  and  January  7  the  Legate  Zoen 
was  instructed  to  treat  him  with  fatherly  affection  and  not  permit 
him  to  be  molested.  In  all  this  absolution  had  only  been  given 
ad  cautelam,  or  provisionally,  for  a  special  excommunication  had 
been  decreed  against  him  as  a  fautor  of  heretics,  after  the  massacre 
of  Avignonet,  by  the  inquisitors  Ferrer  and  Guillem  Eaymond. 
Against  this  he  had  made  a  special  appeal  to  the  Holy  See  in 
April,  1243,  and  a  special  bull  of  May  16, 1244,  was  required  for 
its  abrogation.  No  conditions  seem  to  have  been  imposed  respect- 
ing the  long-deferred  crusade,  and  thenceforth  Eaymond  lived  in 
perfect  harmony  with  the  Holy  See.  Indeed,  he  was  the  recipient 
of  many  favors.  A  bull  of  March  18, 1244,  granted  him  the  priv- 
ilege that  for  five  years  he  should  not  be  forced  by  apostolic  let- 
ters to  answer  in  judgment  outside  of  his  own  dominions ;  another 
of  April  27,  1245,  took  him,  his  family,  and  lands  under  the  special 
pi'otection  of  St.  Peter  and  the  papacy;  and  yet  another  of  May 
12, 1245,  provided  that  no  delegate  of  the  Apostolic  See  should 
have  power  to  utter  excommunication  or  any  other  sentence  against 
him  without  a  special  mandate.  Besides  this,  one  of  A])ril  21, 
1245,  imposed  some  limitations  on  the  power  of  inquisitors,  limita- 
tions which  they  seem  never  to  have  observed.  Eaymond  was 
fairly  won  over.  He  had  evidently  resolved  to  accommodate  him- 
self to  the  necessities  of  the  time,  and  the  heretic  had  nothing  fur- 
ther to  hope  or  the  inquisitor  to  fear  from  him.  The  preparation 
for  increased  and  systematic  vigor  of  operations  is  seen  in  the 
elaborate  provisions,  so  often  referred  to  above,  of  the  Council  of 
Narbonne,  held  at  this  period.* 


*  Vaissette,  III.  443;    Pr.  411,  433-4.  — Pottbast  No.  10943,  11187,  11218, 


42  LANGUEDOC. 

Yet  so  long  as  heresy  retained  tlie  stronghold  of  Montsegur  as 
a  refuge  and  rallying  -  point  its  seciet  and  powerful  organization 
could  not  be  broken.     The  capture  of  that  den  of  outlaws  was  a 
necessity  of  the  first  order,  and  as  soon  as  the  confusion,  of  the  re- 
bellion of  1242  had  subsided  it  was  undertaken  as  a  crusade,  not 
by  Raymond,  but  by  the  Archbishop  of  Narbonne,  the  Bishop  of 
Albi,  the  Seneschal  of  Carcassonne,  and  some  nobles,  either  led  by 
zeal  or  b}^  the  hope  of  salvation.     The  heretics,  on  their  side,  were 
not  idle.     Some  baillis  of  Count  Raymond  sent  them  Bertrand  de 
la  Bacalairia,  a  skilful  maker  of  military  engines,  to  aid  them  in 
the  defence,  who  made  no  scruple  in  afiirming  that  he  came  with 
the  assent  of  the  count,  and  from  every  side  money,  provisions, 
arms,  and  munitions  of  war  were  poured  into  the  stronghold.     In 
the  spring  of  1243  the  siege  began,  prosecuted  with  indefatigable 
ardor  by  the  besiegers,  and  resisted  with  desperate  resolution  by 
the  besieged.     As  in  the  old  combats  at  Toulouse,  the  women  as- 
sisted their  warriors,  and  the  venerable  Catharan  bishop,  Bertrand 
Martin,  animated  their  devoted  courage  with  promises  of  eternal 
bliss.     It  is  significant  of  the  public  temper  thnt  sympathizers  in 
the  besiegers'  camp  permitted  tolerably  free  communication  be- 
tween the  besieged  and  their  friends,  and  gave  them  warning  of 
the  plans  of  attack.     Even  the  treasure  which  had  been  stored  up 
in  Montsegur  was  conveyed  away  safely  through  the  investing 
lines,  about  Christmas,  1243,  to  Pons  Arnaud  de  Chateau verdun 
in  the  Savartes.     Secret  relations  Avere  maintained  with  Count 
Raymond,  and  the  besieged  were  buoyed  up  with  promises  that  if 
they  would  hold  out  until  Easter,  1244,  he  would  march  to  their 
rehef  with  forces  supplied  by  the  Emperor  Frederic  II.     It  was 
aU  in  vain.     The  siege  dragged  on  its  weary  length  for  nearly  a 
year,  till,  on  the  night  of  March  1,  1244,  guided  by  some  shep- 
herds who  betrayed  their  fellow-countrymen,  by  almost  inaccessi- 
ble paths  among  the  cUifs,  the  crusaders  surprised  and  carried  one 
of  the  outworks.     The  castle  was  no  longer  tenable.     A  brief  par- 
ley ensued,  and  the  garrison  agreed  to  surrender  at  dawn,  dehver- 
ing  up  to  the  archbishop  aU  the  perfected  heretics  among  them. 


11390, 11638.  —  Teulet,  Layettes,  II.  533,  524,  528,  534.  —  D'Achery,  HI.  621.— 
Berger,  Registres  d'lnnocent  IV.  No.  21,  267,  360,  364,  594,  697,  1 283.  —  Douais, 
Les  sources  de  I'histoire  de  rinquisition  (loc.  cit.  p.  415). 


FALL    OP    MONTSfiGUR.  43 

on  condition  that  the  lives  of  the  rest  should  be  spared.  Although 
a  few  were  let  down  from  the  walls  with  ropes  and  thus  escaped, 
the  capitulation  was  carried  out,  and  the  archbishop's  shrift  was 
short.  At  the  foot  of  the  mountain-peak  an  enclosure  of  stakes 
was  formed,  |)iled  high  with  wood,  and  set  on  fire.  The  Perfect 
were  asked  to  renounce  their  faith,  and  on  their  refusal  were  cast 
into  the  flames.  Thus  perished  two  hundred  and  five  men  and 
women.  The  conquerors  might  well  write  exultingly  to  the  pope, 
"  "We  have  crushed  the  head  of  the  dragon !"  * 

Although  the  Uves  of  the  rest  of  the  captives  were  guaranteed, 
they  were  utilized  to  the  utmost.  For  months  the  inquisitors  Fer- 
rer and  P.  Durant  devoted  themselves  to  the  examinations  to  se- 
cure evidence  against  heretics  far  and  near,  dead  and  alive.  From 
the  aged  Ea}inond  de  Pereille  to  a  child  ten  years  of  age,  they 
were  forced,  under  repeated  interrogatories,  to  recall  every  case  of 
adoration  and  heretication  that  they  could  remember,  and  page 
after  page  was  covered  with  interminable  lists  of  names  of  those 
present  at  sermons  and  consolamenta  through  a  period  extending 
back  to  thirty  or  forty  years  before,  and  embracing  the  whole 
land  as  far  as  Catalonia.  Even  those  who  had  brought  victual  to 
Montsegur  and  sold  it  were  carefully  looked  after  and  set  down. 
It  can  readily  be  conceived  what  an  accession  was  made  to  the 
terrible  records  of  the  Inquisition,  and  how  valuable  was  the  in- 
sight obtained  into  the  ramifications  of  heresy  throughout  the  land 
during  more  than  a  generation — what  digging  up  of  bones  would 
follow  with  confiscation  of  estates,  and  with  what  unerring  cer- 
tainty the  inquisitors  w^ould  be  able  to  seize  their  victims  and  con- 
found their  denials.  We  can  only  guess  at  the  means  by  which 
this  information  was  extracted  from  the  prisoners.  Torture  had 
not  yet  been  introduced ;  life  had  been  promised,  and  perpetual 
imprisonment  was  inevitable  for  such  pronounced  heretics ;  and 
when  we  see  Raymond  de  PereiUe  liimself,  who  had  endured  un- 
flinchingly the  vicissitudes  of  the  crusades,  and  had  bravely  held 
out  to  the  last,  ransacking  his  memory  to  betray  all  whom  he  had 
ever  seen  adore  a  minister,  we  can  imagine  the  horrors  of  the  two 


'  Guill.  Pod.  Laur.  c.  46.— Coll.  Doat,  XXIL  204,  210;  XXIV.  7fi,  80,  168-72, 
j81. — Schmidt,  Cathares,  I.  335. — Peyrat,  Les  Albigcois  et  Tluquisition,  IL  363 
sqq. 


44  LANGUEDOC. 

months'  preliminary  captivity  which  had  so  broken  his  spirit  as  to 
bring  him  to  this  depth  of  degradation.  Even  a  perfected  heretic, 
Arnaud  de  Bretos,  captured  while  flying  to  Lombardy,  was  in- 
duced to  reveal  the  names  of  all  who  had  given  him  shelter  and 
attended  his  ministrations  during  his  missionary  wanderings.* 

Henceforth  the  Cathari  could  hope  only  in  God.  All  chance 
of  resistance  was  over.  One  by  one  their  supports  had  broken, 
and  there  was  only  left  the  passive  resistance  of  martyrdom.  The 
Inquisition  could  track  and  seize  its  victims  at  leisure,  and  king 
and  count  could  follow  with  decrees  of  confiscation  which  were 
gradually  to  transfer  the  lands  of  the  South  to  orthodox  and  loyal 
subjects.  The  strongest  testimony  that  can  be  given  to  the  living 
earnestness  of  the  Catharan  faith  is  to  be  found  in  the  prolongar 
tion  of  this  struggle  yet  through  three  hopeless  generations.  It  is 
no  wonder,  however,  if  the  immediate  effect  of  these  crowding 
events  was  to  fiU  the  heretics  with  despair.  In  the  poem  of  Isarn 
de  YiUemur,  written  about  this  period,  the  heretic,  Sicard  de  Fi- 
gueras  is  represented  as  saying  that  their  best  and  most  trusted 
friends  are  turning  against  them  and  betraying  them.  How  many 
believers  at  this  juncture  abandoned  their  religion,  even  at  the 
cost  of  lifelong  imprisonment,  we  have  no  means  of  accurately  es- 
timating, but  the  number  must  have  been  enormous,  to  judge  from 
the  request,  already  alluded  to,  of  the  Council  of  Narbonne  about 
this  time  to  the  inquisitors  to  postpone  their  sentences  in  view 
of  the  impossibility  of  building  prisons  sufficient  to  contain  the 
crowds  who  hurried  in  to  accuse  themselves  and  seek  reconcilia- 
tion, after  the  expiration  of  the  time  of  grace,  which  Innocent  IV., 
in  December,  1243,  had  ordered  to  be  designated  afresh.f 

Yet,  in  a  population  so  thoroughly  leavened  with  heresy,  these 
thousands  of  voluntary  penitents  still  left  an  ample  field  of  activ- 
ity for  the  zeal  of  the  inquisitors.  Each  one  who  confessed  was 
bound  to  give  the  names  of  all  whom  he  had  seen  engaged  in  he- 
retical acts,  and  of  all  who  had  been  hereticated  on  the  death-bed. 
Innumerable  clews  were  thus  obtained  to  bring  to  trial  those  who 
failed  to  accuse  themselves,  and  to  exhume  and  burn  the  bones  of 
those  who  were  beyond  the  ability  to  recant.     For  the  next  few 


*  Collection  Doat,  XXII.  203,  214,  237;  XXIV.  68, 160, 183,  198. 

t  Millet,  Troubadours,  II.  77.— Berger,  Registres  d'lunoceut  IV.  No.  37. 


DEVELOPMENT    OF    INQUISITION.  45 

years  the  life  of  the  inquisitors  was  a  busy  one.  The  stunned 
populations  no  longer  offered  resistance,  and  grew  used  to  the  de- 
spair of  the  penitents  sentenced  to  perpetual  prison,  the  dragging 
of  decomposed  corpses  through  the  streets,  and  the  horror  of  the 
Tophets  where  the  victims  passed  through  temporal  to  eternal 
flame.  Still  there  is  a  slight  indication  that  the  service  was  not 
wholly  without  danger  from  the  goadings  of  vengeance  or  the 
courage  of  despair,  when  the  Council  of  Beziers,  in  1 2-i6,  ordering 
travelling  inquests,  makes  exception  in  the  cases  when  it  may  not 
be  safe  for  the  inquisitors  to  personally  visit  the  places  where  the 
inquisition  should  be  held;  and  Innocent  lY.,  in  1247,  authorizes 
the  inquisitors  to  cite  the  accused  to  come  to  them,  in  view  of  the 
perils  arising  from  the  ambushes  of  heretics.* 

The  fearless  and  indefatigable  men  who  now  performed  the 
functions  of  inquisitor  in  Languedoc  can  rarely  have  taken  advan- 
tage of  this  concession  to  weakness.  Bernard  de  Caux,  who  so 
well  earned  the  title  of  the  hammer  of  heretics,  was  at  this  time 
the  leading  spirit  of  the  Inquisition  of  Toulouse,  after  a  term  of 
service  in  Montpellier  and  Agen,  and  he  had  for  colleague  a  kin- 
dred spirit  in  Jean  de  Saint-Pierre.  Together  they  made  a  thor- 
ough inquest  over  the  whole  province,  passing  the  population 
through  a  sieve  with  a  completeness  which  must  have  left  few 
guilty  consciences  unexamined.  There  is  extant  a  fragmentary 
record  of  this  inquest,  covering  the  years  1245  and  1246,  during 
Avhich  no  less  than  six  hundred  places  were  investigated,  embrac- 
ing about  one  half  of  Languedoc.  The  magnitude  of  the  work 
thus  undertaken,  and  the  incredible  energy  with  which  it  was 
pushed,  is  seen  in  the  enormous  number  of  interrogatories  recorded 
in  petty  towns.  Thus  at  Avignonet  there  are  two  hundred  and 
thirty  ;  at  Fanjoux,  one  hundred  ;  at  Mas  -  Saintes  -  Puelles,  four 
hundred  and  twenty.  M.  Molinier,  to  whom  Ave  are  indebted  for 
an  account  of  this  interesting  document,  has  not  made  an  accurate 
count  of  the  whole  number  of  cases,  but  estimates  that  the  total 
cannot  fall  far  short  of  eight  thousand  to  ten  thousand.  When 
we  consider  what  all  this  involved  in  the  duty  of  examination  and 
comparison  we  may  well  feel  wonder  at  the  superliuman  energy 
of  these  founders  of  the  Inquisition ;  but  we  may  also  assume,  as 


*  Concil.  Biterrens.  ann.  1246,  Consil.  ad  Inquis.  c.  1. — Ripoll,  I.  179. 


46  L  A  N  G  U  E  D  O  C. 

with  the  sentences  of  Pierre  Cella,  that  tlie  fate  of  the  victims 
who  were  sifted  out  of  this  mass  of  testimony  must  have  been 
passed  upon  with  no  proper  or  conscientious  scrutiny.  At  least, 
however,  they  must  have  escaped  the  long  and  torturing  delays 
customary  in  the  later  and  more  leisurely  stages  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion. With  such  a  record  before  us  it  is  not  easy  to  understand 
the  complaint  of  the  bishops  of  Languedoc,  in  1245,  that  the  In- 
quisition was  too  merciful,  that  heresy  was  increasing,  and  that 
the  inquisitors  ought  to  be  urged  to  greater  exertions.  It  was 
possibly  in  consequence  of  the  lack  of  harmony  thus  revealed  be- 
tween the  episcopate  and  the  Inquisition  that  Innocent,  in  April 
of  the  same  3'^ear,  ordered  the  Inquisitors  of  Languedoc  to  proceed 
as  usual  in  cases  of  manifest  heresy,  and  in  those  involving  slight 
punishment,  while  he  directed  them  to  suspend  proceedings  in 
matters  requiring  imprisonment,  crosses,  long  pilgrimages,  and 
confiscation  until  definite  rules  should  be  laid  down  in  the  Council 
of  Lyons,  which  he  was  about  to  open.  These  questions,  however, 
were  settled  in  that  of  Beziers,  w^hich  met  in  1246,  and  issued  a  new 
code  of  procedure.* 

In  all  this  Count  Raymond,  now  thoroughly  fitted  in  the  Cath- 
ohc  groove,  was  an  earnest  participant.  As  his  stormy  hfe  drew 
to  its  close,  harmony  with  the  Church  was  too  great  an  element 
of  comfort  and  prosperity  for  him  to  hesitate  in  purchasing  it  with 
the  blood  of  a  few  of  his  subjects,  whom,  indeed,  he  could  scarce 
have  saved  had  he  so  willed.  He  gave  conspicuous  evidence  of 
his  hatred  of  heresy.  In  1247  he  ordered  his  officials  to  compel 
the  attendance  of  the  inhabitants  at  the  sermons  of  the  friars  in 
all  towns  and  villages  through  which  they  ptassed,  and  in  1249,  at 
Berlaiges,  near  Agen,  he  coldly  ordered  the  burning  of  eighty  be- 
lievers who  had  confessed  their  errors  in  his  presence — a  piece  of 
cruelty  far  transcending  that  habitual  with  the  inquisitors.  About 
the  same  time  King  Jayme  of  Aragon  effected  a  change  in  the 
Inquisition  in  the  territories  of  Narbonne.  Possibly  this  may 
have  had  some  connection  with  the  murder  by  the  citizens  of  two 

*  Doat,  XXII.  217.  —  Moliuier,  L'Inquisition  dans  le  midi  de  la  France,  pp. 
186-90.— See  also  Peyrat,  Les  Albigeois  et  I'lnq.  III.  467-73.— Vaissette,  III.  Pr. 
446-8.— Teulet,  Layettes,  II.  566. 

M.  I'Abbe  Douais  (loc.  cit.  p.  419)  tells  us  that  the  examinations  in  the  in- 
quest of  Bernard  de  Caux  number  five  thousand  eight  hundred  and  four, 


DEATH  OF  COUNT  RAYMOND.  47 

officials  of  the  Inquisition  and  the  destruction  of  its  records,  giv- 
ing endless  trouble  in  the  effort  to  reconstruct  the  lists  of  sentences 
and  the  invaluable  accumulation  of  evidence  against  suspects.  Be 
this  as  it  may,  Innocent  IV.,  at  the  request  of  the  king,  forbade 
the  archbishop  and  inquisitors  from  fmiher  proceedings  against 
heresy,  and  then  empowered  the  Dominican  Provincial  of  Spain 
and  Eaymond  of  Pennaforte  to  appoint  new  ones  for  the  French 
possessions  of  Aragon.* 

"When  St.  Louis  undertook  his  disastrous  crusade  to  Daraietta 
he  was  unwilling  to  leave  behind  him  so  dangerous  a  vassal  as 
Eaymond.  The  vow  of  service  to  Palestine  had  long  since  been 
remitted  by  Innocent  IV.,  but  the  count  was  open  to  persuasion, 
and  the  bribes  offered  show  at  once  the  importance  attached  to 
his  presence  with  the  host  and  to  his  absence  from  home.  The 
king  promised  him  twenty  thousand  to  thirty  thousand  livres  for 
his  expenses  and  the  restitution  of  the  duchy  of  Narbonne  on  his 
return.  The  pope  agreed  to  pay  him  two  thousand  marks  on  his 
arrival  beyond  seas,  and  that  he  should  have  during  his  absence  all 
the  proceeds  of  the  redemption  of  vows  and  all  legacies  bequeathed 
to  the  crusade.  The  prohibition  of  imposing  penitential  crusades 
on  converted  heretics  was  also  suspended  for  his  benefit,  while  the 
other  long  pilgrimages  customarily  emplo3'ed  as  penances  were 
not  to  be  enjoined  while  he  was  in  service.  Stimulated  by  these 
dazzling  rewards,  he  assumed  the  cross  in  earnest,  and  his  ardor  for 
the  purity  of  the  faith  grew  stronger.  Even  the  tireless  actiWty 
of  Bernard  de  Caux  was  insufficient  to  satisfy  him.  While  that 
incomparable  persecutor  was  devoting  aU  his  energies  to  working 
up  the  results  of  his  tremendous  inquests,  Eaymond,  early  in  1248, 
complained  to  Innocent  that  the  Inquisition  was  neglecting  its 
duty ;  that  heretics,  both  living  and  dead,  remained  uncondemned ; 
that  others  from  abroad  were  coming  into  his  own  and  neighbor- 
ing territories  and  spreading  their  pestilence,  so  that  the  land 
which  had  been  well-nigh  purified  was  again  filled  with  heresy,  f 

Death  spared  Eaymond  the  misfortunes  of  the  ill-starred  Egyp- 
tian crusade.     When  his  preparations  were  almost  complete  he 

*  Vaissette,  III.  457,  459  ;  Pr.  467.— Guill.  Pod.  Laur.  c.  48.— Baluz.  et  Mansi 
I.  210.— Arch,  de  ITnq.  de  Carcassonne  (Doat,  XXXI.  105,  149).-Ripoll,  I.  184. 

t  Vaissette,  III.  455-6 ;  Pr.  468,  469.— Arch,  de  Tlnq.  de  Care.  (Doat,  XXXI. 
77,  79,  80).— Murtene  Thesaur.  1. 1040. 


48  LANGUEDOC. 

was  seized  with  mortal  illness  and  died,  September  27, 1249,  with 
his  latest  breatli  ordering  liis  heirs  to  restore  the  sums  which  he 
had  received  for  the  expedition,  and  to  send  fifty  knights  to  serve 
in  Palestine  for  a  3^ear.  That  his  death  was  generally  regretted 
by  liis  subjects  ^ve  can  readily  believe.  Not  only  was  it  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  great  house  which  had  bravely  held  its  own  from 
Carlovingian  times,  but  the  people  felt  that  the  last  barrier  be- 
tween them  and  the  hated  Frenchmen  was  removed.  The  heiress 
Jeanne  had  been  educated  at  the  royal  court,  and  was  French  in 
all  but  birth.  Moreover,  she  seems  to  have  been  a  nonentity 
whose  influence  is  imperceptible,  and  the  sceptre  of  the  South 
passed  into  the  hands  of  Alphonse  of  Poitiers,  an  avaricious  and 
politic  prince,  whose  zeal  for  orthodoxy  was  greatly  stimulated 
by  the  profitable  confiscations  resulting  from  persecution.  Ray- 
mond had  required  repeated  urging  to  induce  him  to  employ  this 
dreaded  penalty  with  the  needful  severity.  No  such  watchfulness 
was  necessary  in  the  case  of  Alphonse.  When  the  rich  heritage  fell 
in,  he  and  his  wite  w^ere  wdth  his  brother,  King  Louis,  in  Egypt,  but 
the  vigilant  regent.  Queen  Blanche,  promptly  took  possession  in 
their  name,  and  on  their  return,  in  1251,  they  personally  received 
the  homage  of  their  subjects.  By  a  legal  subtlety  Alphonse  evaded 
the  payment  of  the  pious  legacies  of  Raymond's  will,  and  compound- 
ed for  it  by  leaving,  on  his  departure  for  the  North,  a  large  sum  to 
provide  for  the  expenses  of  the  Inquisition,  and  to  furnish  wood  for 
the  execution  of  its  sentences.  Not  long  afterwards  we  find  him 
urging  his  bishops  to  render  more  efficient  support  to  the  labors 
of  the  inquisitors ;  in  his  chancery  there  "was  a  regular  formula  of 
a  commission  for  inquisitors,  to  be  sent  to  Rome  for  the  papal  sig- 
nature ;  and  throughout  his  t^venty  years  of  reign  he  pursued  the 
same  policy  without  deviation.  The  urgency  with  w^hich,  in  De- 
cember, 1268,  he  wrote  to  Pons  de  Poyet  and  Etienne  de  Gatine, 
stimulating  them  to  redoubled  activity  in  clearing  his  dominions 
of  heretics,  w^as  wholly  superfluous,  but  it  is  characteristic  of  the 
line  of  action  which  he  carried  out  consistently  to  the  end.* 

The  fate  of  Languedoc  was  now  irrevocably  sealed.     Hitherto 


*  Martene  Thesaur.  I.  1044.— Vaissette,  III.  465.— Vaissette,  £d.  Privat,  VIII. 
135o,  1292,  1383, 1583.— Guill.  Pod.  Laur.  c.  48.— Mary-Lafon,  Hist,  du  midi  de 
la  France,  III.  33,  49.— Arch,  de  Tliiq.  de  Carcass.  (Doat,  XXXI.  250). 


STUBBORNNESS    OF    HERESY.  4,9 

there  had  been  hopes  that  perhaps  Raymond's  inconstancy  might 
lead  him  to  retrace  the  steps  of  the  last  few  years.  Moreover,  his 
subjects  had  shared  in  the  desire,  manifested  in  his  repeated  mar- 
riage projects,  that  he  should  have  an  heir  to  inherit  the  lands  not 
pledged  in  succession  to  his  daughter.  He  was  but  in  his  fifty-first 
year,  and  the  expectation  was  not  unreasonable  that  his  line  might 
be  perpetuated  and  the  southern  nationality  be  preserved.  All 
this  was  now  seen  to  be  a  delusion,  and  the  most  sanguine  Cath- 
aran  could  look  forward  to  nothing  but  a  life  of  concealment  end- 
ing in  prison  or  fire.  Yet  the  heretic  Church  stubbornly  held  its 
own,  though  with  greatly  diminished  numbers.  Many  of  its  mem- 
bers fled  to  Lombardy,  where,  even  after  the  death  of  Frederic  II., 
the  civic  troubles  and  the  policy  of  local  despots,  such  as  Ezzelin 
da  Eomano,  afforded  some  shelter  from  the  Inquisition.  Yet 
many  remained  and  pursued  their  wandering  missions  among  the 
faithful,  perpetually  tracked  by  inquisitorial  spies,  but  rarely  be- 
trayed. These  humble  and  forgotten  men,  hopelessly  braving 
hardship,  toil,  and  peril  in  what  they  deemed  the  cause  of  God, 
were  true  martyrs,  and  their  steadfast  heroism  shows  how  little 
relation  the  truth  of  a  religion  bears  to  the  self-devotion  of  its  fol- 
lowers. Eainerio  Saccone,  the  converted  Catharan,  who  had  the 
be&t  means  of  ascertaining  the  facts,  computes,  about  this  time, 
that  there  were  in  Lombardy  one  hundred  and  fifty  "  perfected  " 
refugees  from  France,  while  the  churches  of  Toulouse,  Carcas- 
sonne, and  Albi,  including  that  of  Agen,  then  nearly  destroyed, 
numbered  two  hundred  more.  These  figures  would  indicate  that 
a  very  considerable  congregation  of  believers  still  existed  in  spite 
of  the  systematic  and  ruthless  proscription  of  the  past  twenty 
years.  Their  earnestness  was  kept  alive,  not  only  by  the  occa- 
sional and  dearly-prized  visits  of  the  travelHng  ministers,  but  by 
the  frequent  intercourse  which  was  maintained  with  Lombardy. 
Until  the  disappearance  of  the  sect  on  tliis  side  of  the  Alps,  there 
is,  in  the  confessions  of  penitents,  perpetual  allusion  to  these  pil- 
grimages back  and  forth,  which  kept  up  the  relations  between  the 
refugees  and  those  left  at  home.  Thus,  in  1254,  Guillem  Fournier, 
in  an  interrogatory  before  the  Inquisition  of  Toulouse,  relates 
that  he  started  for  Italy  with  five  companions,  including  two 
women.  His  first  resting-place  was  at  Coni,  where  he  met  many 
heretics;  then  at  Pa  via,  where  he  was  hereticated  by  Raymond 
II. 


50  LANGUEDOC. 

Mercicr,  former  deacon  of  Toulouse.  At  Cremona  he  lived  for  a 
year  with  Vivien,  the  much-loved  Bishop  of  Toulouse,  with  whom 
he  found  a  number  of  noble  refugees.  At  Pisa  he  stayed  for  eight 
months ;  at  Piacenza  he  again  met  Yivien,  and  he  finally  returned 
to  Languedoo  with  messages  from  the  refugees  to  their  friends  at 
home.  In  1300,  at  Albi,  Etienne  Mascot  confesses  that  he  had 
been  sent  to  Lombardy  by  Master  Raymond  Calverie  to  bring 
back  Raymond  Andre,  or  some  other  perfected  heretic.  At  Genoa 
he  met  Bertrand  Fabri,  who  had  been  sent  on  the  same  errand  by 
Guillem  Golfier.  They  proceeded  together  and  met  other  old  ac- 
quaintances, now  refugees,  who  conducted  them  to  a  spot  where, 
in  a  wood,  were  several  houses  of  refuge  for  heretics.  The  lord  of 
the  place  gave  them  a  Lombard,  Guglielmo  Pagani,  who  returned 
with  them.  In  1309  Guillem  Falquet  confessed  at  Toulouse  to 
having  been  four  times  to  Como,  and  even  to  Sicily,  organizing  the 
Church.  He  was  caught  while  visiting  a  sick  believer,  and  con- 
demned to  imprisonment  in  chains,  but  managed  to  escape  in  1313. 
At  the  same  time  was  sentenced  Raymond  de  Yerdun,  who  had 
likewise  been  four  times  to  Lombardy.* 

The  proscribed  heretics,  thus  nursing  their  faith  in  secret,  gave 
the  inquisitors  ample  occupation.  As  their  ranks  were  thinned  by 
persecution  and  flight,  and  as  their  skill  in  concealment  increased 
with  experience,  there  could  no  longer  be  the  immense  harvests 
of  penitents  reaped  by  Pierre  CeUa  and  Bernard  de  Caux,  but 
there  were  enough  to  reward  the  energies  of  the  friars  and  to  tax 


*  Rainer.  Summa  (Mart,  Thesai;r.  V.  1768). — Molinier,  L'Inquis.  dans  le  midi 
de  la  France,  pp.  254-55.  — MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin.  No.  11847. —  Lib.  Sen- 
tentt.  Inq.  Tolos.  pp.  13,  14.  —  See  also  the  curious  account  of  Ivo  of  Narbonne 
in  Matt.  Paris,  ann.  1243,  p.  412-13  (Ed.  1644). 

The  Abbg  Douais,  in  his  analysis  of  the  fragments  of  the  "  Registre  de  I'ln- 
quisition  de  Toulouse"  of  1254  and  1256,  tells  us  that  it  contains  the  names  of 
six  hundred  and  thirteen  accused  belonging  to  the  departments  of  Aude,  Arifege, 
Gers,  Aveyron,  and  Tarne-et-Garonne,  the  greater  part  of  whom  were  Perfects. 
That  this  is  evidently  an  error  is  shown  by  the  statistics  of  Rainerio  Saccone, 
quoted  in  the  text.  At  this  time,  in  fact,  the  whole  Catharan  Church,  from  Con- 
stantinople to  Aragon,  contained  only  four  thousand  Perfects.  Still  the  number 
of  accused  shows  the  continued  existence  of  heresy  as  a  formidable  social  factor 
and  the  successful  activity  of  the  Inquisition  in  tracking  it.  In  this  register 
eight  witnesses  contribute  one  hundred  and  seven  names  to  the  list  of  accused 
(Sources  de  Tbist.  de  I'lnquisition,  loc.  cit.  pp.  432-33). 


THE    INQUISITION    PERFECTED.  51 

the  adroitness  of  their  spies.  The  organization  of  the  Inquisition, 
moreover,  was  gradually  perfected.  In  1254  the  Council  of  Albi 
carefully  revised  the  regulations  concerning  it.  Fixed  tribunals 
Avere  established,  and  the  limitations  of  the  inquisitorial  districts 
were  strictly  defined.  For  Provence  and  the  territories  east  of 
the  Rhone,  Marseilles  was  the  headquarters,  eventually  confided 
to  the  Franciscans.  The  rest  of  the  infected  regions  were  left  to 
the  Dominicans,  with  tribunals  at  Toulouse,  Carcassonne,  and  Nar- 
bonne ;  and,  from  such  fragmentary  documents  as  have  reached 
us,  at  this  time  the  Inquisition  at  Carcassonne  rivalled  that  of 
Toulouse  in  energy  and  effectiveness.  For  a  while  safety  was 
sought  by  heretics  in  northern  France,  but  the  increasing  vigor  of 
the  Inquisition  estabhshed  there  drove  the  unfortunate  refugees 
back,  and  in  1255  a  bull  of  Alexander  IV.  authorized  the  Provin- 
cial of  Paris  and  his  inquisitors  to  pursue  the  fugitives  in  the  ter- 
ritories of  the  Count  of  Toulouse.  At  the  same  time  the  special 
functions  of  the  inquisitors  were  jealously  guarded  against  all  en- 
croachments. We  have  seen  how,  in  its  early  days,  it  was  sub- 
jected to  the  control  of  papal  legates,  but  now  that  it  was  firmly 
established  and  thoroughly  organized  it  was  held  independent ; 
and  when  the  legate  Zoen,  Bishop  of  A\'ignon,  in  1257,  endeav- 
ored, in  virtue  of  his  legatine  authority,  which  fourteen  j^ears  be- 
fore had  been  so  absolute,  to  perform  inquisitorial  work,  he  was 
rudely  reminded  by  Alexander  IV.  that  he  could  do  so  if  he 
pleased  in  his  own  diocese,  but  that  outside  of  it  he  must  not  in- 
terfere with  the  Inquisition.  To  this  period  is  also  to  be  ascribed 
the  complete  subjection  of  all  secular  officials  to  the  behests  of  the 
inquisitors.  The  piety  of  St.  Louis  and  the  greed  of  Alphonse  of 
Poitiers  and  Charles  of  Anjou  rivalled  each  other  in  placing  all 
the  powers  of  the  State  at  the  disposal  of  the  Holy  Office,  and  in 
providing  for  its  expenses.  It  was  virtually  supreme  in  the  land, 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  a  law  unto  itself.* 

The  last  shadow  of  open  resistance  was  dissipated  in  the  year 
1255.     After  the  fall  of  Montsegur  the  proscribed  and  disinher- 


*  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  Nouv.  Acquis.  139. — Molinier,  op.  cit.  p.  404. — 
Ripoll  I.  273-4.— Arch.  Nat.  de  France,  J.  431,  No.  34.— Arch,  de  I'lnq.  de  Care. 
(Doat,  XXXI.  239,  250,  252).— Vaissette,  III.  Pr.  528,  536.— Arch,  di  Napoli,  Re- 
gestro  6,  Lettere  D,  fol.  180. 


52  L  A  N  G  U  E  D  O  C. 

ited  knights,  the  faidits,  and  the  heretics  had  sought  to  establish 
among  the  mountains  some  stronghold  where  they  could  feel  safe 
for  a  moment.  Driven  from  one  retreat  after  another,  they  finally 
took  possession  of  the  castle  of  Queribus,  in  the  Pyrenees  of  Fe- 
nouiUedes.  In  the  early  spring  of  1255  this  last  refuge  was  be- 
sieged by  Pierre  d'Auteuil,  the  royal  Seneschal  of  Carcassonne. 
The  defence  was  stubborn.  May  5  the  seneschal  appealed  to  the 
bishops  sitting  in  council  at  Beziers  to  give  him  assistance,  as  they 
had  done  so  energetically  at  Montsegur.  The  reply  of  the  prel- 
ates was  commendably  cautious.  They  were  not  bound,  they 
said,  to  render  military  service  to  the  king,  and  when  they  had 
joined  his  armies  it  had  been  by  command  of  a  legate  or  of  their 
primate,  the  Archbishop  of  Narbonne.  Nevertheless,  as  common 
report  described  Queribus  as  a  receptacle  of  heretics,  thieves,  and 
robbers,  and  its  reduction  was  a  good  work  for  the  faith  and  for 
peace,  they  would  each  one,  without  derogating  from  his  rights, 
furnish  such  assistance  as  seemed  to  him  fitting.  It  may  be  as- 
sumed from  this  that  the  seneschal  had  to  do  the  work  unaided ; 
in  fact,  he  complained  to  the  king  that  the  prelates  rather  impeded 
than  assisted  him,  but  by  August  the  place  was  in  his  hands,  and 
nothing  remained  for  the  outlaws  but  the  forest  and  the  caverns. 
In  that  savage  region  the  dense  undergrowth  afforded  many  a 
hiding-place,  and  an  attempt  was  made  to  cut  away  the  briers  and 
thorns  which  served  as  shelter  for  ruined  noble  and  hunted  Catha- 
ran.  The  work  Avas  undertaken  by  a  certain  Bernard,  who  thence 
acquired  the  name  of  Espinasser  or  thorn-cutter.  Popular  hatred 
has  preserved  his  remembrance,  and  expresses  its  sentiment  in  a 
myth  which  gibbets  him  in  the  moon.* 

With  the  land  at  its  feet,  the  Inquisition,  in  the  plenitude  of  its 
power,  had  no  hesitation  in  attacking  the  loftiest  nobles,  for  aU 
men  were  on  a  level  in  the  eyes  of  the  Most  High,  and  the  Holy 
Office  was  the  avenger  of  God.  The  most  powerful  vassal  of  the 
houses  of  Toulouse  and  Aragon  was  the  Count  of  Foix,  whose  ex- 
tensive territories  on  both  sides  of  the  Pyrenees  rendered  him  al- 
most independent  in  his  mountain  fastnesses.  Count  Roger  Ber- 
nard IL,  known  as  the  Great,  had  been  one  of  the  bravest  and 


*  Concil.  Biterrens.  aim.  1355.— Vaissette,  III.  482-3;   IV.  17. —  A.  Molinier 
(Vaissette,  td.  Privat,  VI.  843).— Peyiat,  op.  cit.  III.  54. 


ROGER    BERNARD    OF    FOIX.  53 

most  obstinate  defenders  of  the  land,  and,  after  the  pacification  of 
1229,  Eaymond  had  been  obhged  to  threaten  him  with  war  to 
force  him  to  submit.  His  memory  was  proudly  treasured  in  the 
land  as  "  Rogier  Bernat  lo  pros  et  sens  dengun  reproche^  His 
family  was  deeply  tinctured  with  heresy.  His  wife  and  one  ©f 
his  sisters  were  Waldenses,  another  sister  was  a  Catharan,  and  the 
monk  of  Yaux-Cernay  describes  him  as  an  enemy  of  God  and  a 
cruel  persecutor  of  the  Church.  Yet,  when  he  yielded  in  1229,  al- 
though he  does  not  seem  to  have  enei'getically  fulfilled  his  oath 
to  persecute  heresy  in  his  domains,  for  in  1233  we  hear  of  his  hold- 
ing a  personal  conference  at  Aix  with  the  heretic  bishop  Bertrand 
Martin,  he  was  in  other  respects  a  loyal  subject  and  faithful  son 
of  the  Church.  In  1237  he  counselled  his  son,  then  Yizconde  de 
Castelbo  in  Aragon,  to  allow  the  Inquisition  in  his  lands,  which 
resulted  in  the  condemnation  of  many  heretics,  although  Ponce, 
Bishop  of  Urgel,  his  personal  enemy,  had  refused  to  relieve  him 
of  excommunication  as  a  fautor  of  heresy  until  1240,  when  he  sub- 
mitted to  the  conditions  imposed,  abjured  heresy,  and  was  recon- 
ciled. At  his  death,  in  1241,  he  left  liberal  bequests  to  the  Church, 
and  especially  to  his  ancestral  Cistercian  Abbey  of  Bolbonne,  in 
which  he  died  in  monkish  habit,  after  duly  receiving  the  sacra- 
ments. His  son,  Iloger  lY.,  gave  the  coup  de  grace  to  the  rising  of 
1242,  by  placing  himself  under  the  immediate  sovereignty  of  the 
crown,  and  defeating  Raymond  after  the  victories  of  St.  Louis  had 
driven  back  the  English  and  Gascons.  He  had  some  troubles  with 
the  Inquisition,  but  a  bull  of  Innocent  lY.,  in  1248,  eulogizes  his 
devotion  to  the  Holy  See,  and  rewards  him  with  the  power  to  re- 
lease from  the  saffron  crosses  six  penitents  of  his  choice ;  and  in 
1201  he  issued  an  edict  commanding  the  enforcement  of  the  rule 
that  no  office  within  his  domains  should  be  held  by  any  one  con- 
demned to  wear  crosses,  any  one  suspected  of  heresy,  or  the  son 
of  any  one  similarly  defamed.* 

All  this  would  seem  to  give  ample  guarantee  of  the  orthodoxy 
and  loyalty  of  the  House  of  Foix,  but  the  Inquisition  could  not 


*  Miguel  del  Verms,  Clnonique  Bcarnaise.  —  P.  Sarnaii  Hist.  Alhigons.  c.  6. 
— Guill.  Pod.  Laur.  c.  8.— Sclunidt,  Catlmres,  I.  299.— Vaissette,  III.  42(5,  503  ;  Pr. 
383-5,  392-3.— Tculet,  Layettes,  II.  490.— Bern.  Guidon.  Vit.  Crtlestin.  PP.  IV. 
(Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  III.  589).— Berger,  Registres  d'Innocent  IV.  No.  3030. 


54:  L  A  N  G  U  E  D  O  C. 

condone  its  ancient  patriotism  and  tolerance.  Besides,  if  Roger 
Bernard  the  Great  could  be  convicted  of  heresy,  the  confiscation 
of  the  broad  inheritance  would  effect  a  great  political  object  and 
afford  ample  spoils  for  all  concerned.  Twenty-two  years  after  his 
death,  therefore,  in  12G3,  proceedings  were  commenced  against  his 
memory.  A  faithful  servitor  of  the  old  count  still  survived,  Ray- 
mond Bernard  de  Flascan,  bailli  of  Mazeres,  who  had  attended  his 
lord  day  and  night  during  his  last  sickness.  If  he  could  be  brought 
to  swear  that  he  had  seen  heretication  performed  on  the  death-bed, 
the  desirable  object  would  be  attained.  Frere  Pons,  the  Inquisitor 
of  Carcassonne,  came  to  Mazeres,  found  the  old  man  an  unsatisfac- 
tory witness,  and  threw-  him  into  a  dungeon.  Suffering  under  a  se- 
vere strangury,  he  was  starved  and  tormented  with  all  the  cruel  in- 
genuity of  the  Inquisition,  and  interrogated  at  intervals,  without  his 
resolution  giving  way.  This  was  continued  for  thirty-two  days, 
when  Pons  resolved  to  carry  him  back  to  Carcassonne,  where  possi- 
bly the  appliances  for  bringing  refractory  witnesses  to  terms  were 
more  efficacious.  Before  the  journey,  which  he  expected  to  be 
his  last,  the  faithful  bailli  was  given  a  day's  respite  at  the  Abbey 
of  Bolbonne,  w^hich  he  utilized  by  executing  a  notarial  instrument, 
I^ovember  26, 1263,  attested  by  two  abbots  and  a  number  of  monks, 
in  which  he  recited  the  trials  already  endured,  solemnly  declared 
that  he  had  never  seen  the  old  count  do  anything  contrary  to  the 
faith  of  Rome,  but  that  he  had  died  as  a  good  Catholic,  and  that 
if,  under  the  severe  torture  to  which  he  expected  to  be  subjected, 
human  weakness  should  lead  him  to  assert  anything  else,  he  would 
be  a  liar  and  a  traitor,  and  no  credence  should  be  given  to  his 
words.  It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  more  damning  reve- 
lation of  inquisitorial  methods ;  yet  fifty  years  later,  when  those 
methods  had  been  perfected,  all  concerned  in  the  preparation  of 
the  instrument,  whether  as  notary  or  witnesses,  would  have  been 
prosecuted  as  impeders  of  the  Inquisition,  to  be  severely  punished 
as  fautors  of  heresy.* 

What  became  of  the  poor  wretch  does  not  appear.  Doubtless 
he  perished  in  the  terrible  Mura  of  Carcassonne  under  the  combi- 
nation of  disease,  torture,  and  starvation.  His  judicial  murder, 
however,  was  gratuitous,  for  the  old  count's  memory  remained  un- 


•  Vaissette,  IH.  Pr.  551-3. 


ROGER    BERNARD    III.  55 

condemned.  Yet  Roger  Bernard  III.,  despite  the  papal  favor  and 
the  proofs  he  had  given  of  adhesion  to  the  new  order  of  things, 
was  a  perpetual  target  for  inquisitorial  malice.  When  lying  in 
mortal  illness  at  Mazeres,  in  December,  1264,  he  received  from 
Etienne  de  Gatine,  then  Inquisitor  of  Narbonne,  an  imperious  or- 
der, with  threats  of  prosecution  in  case  of  failure,  to  capture  and 
deliver  up  his  bailli  of  Foix,  Pierre  Andre,  who  was  suspect  of 
lieresy  and  had  fled  on  being  cited  to  appear.  The  count  dared 
only  in  reply  to  express  surprise  that  no  notice  had  been  given  him 
that  his  bailli  was  wanted,  adding  that  he  had  issued  orders  for  his 
arrest,  and  would  have  personally  joined  in  the  pursuit  had  not 
sickness  rendered  him  incapable.  At  the  same  time  he  requested 
"  Apostoli,"  and  appealed  to  the  pope,  to  whom  he  retailed  his 
grievances.  The  inquisitors,  he  said,  had  never  ceased  persecuting 
him ;  at  the  head  of  armed  forces  they  were  in  the  habit  of  de- 
vastating his  lands  under  pretext  of  searching  for  heretics,  and 
they  would  bring  in  their  train  and  under  their  protection  his 
special  enemies,  until  his  territories  were. nearly  ruined  and  his 
jurisdiction  set  at  naught.  He,  therefore,  placed  himself  and  his 
dominions  under  the  protection  of  the  Holy  See.  He  probably 
escaped  further  personal  troubles,  for  he  died  two  months  later,  in 
February,  1265,  like  his  father,  in  the  Cistercian  habit,  and  in  the 
Abbey  of  Bolbonne ;  but  in  1292  his  memory  was  assailed  before 
Bertrand  de  Clermont,  Inquisitor  of  Carcassonne.  The  effort  was 
fruitless,  for  in  1297  Bertrand  gave  to  his  son,  Roger  Bernard  lY., 
a  declaration  that  the  accusation  had  been  disproved,  and  that 
neither  he  nor  his  father  should  suffer  in  person  or  property  in 
consequence  of  it.* 

When  such  were  the  persecutions  to  which  the  greatest  were 
exposed  it  is  easy  to  understand  the  tyranny  exercised  over  the 
whole  land  by  the  irresponsible  power  of  the  inquisitors.  No  one 
Avas  so  loftily  placed  as  to  be  beyond  their  reach,  no  one  so  hum- 
ble as  to  escape  their  spies.  When  once  they  had  cause  of  enmity 
with  a  man  there  was  no  further  peace  for  him.  The  only  appeal 
from  them  was  to  the  pope,  and  not  only  was  Rome  distant,  but 
the  avenue  to  it  lay,  as  we  have  seen,  in  their  own  hands.  Human 
wickedness  and  foUy  have  erected,  in  the  world's  history,  more  vio 


•  Vaissette,  III.  Pr.  575-77  ;  IV.  Pr.  109. 


56  LANGUEDOC. 

lent  despotisms,  but  never  one  more  cruel,  more  benumbing,  or 
more  all-pervading. 

For  the  next  twenty  years  there  is  little  worthy  of  special  note 
in  the  operations  of  the  Inquisition  of  Languedoc.  It  pursued  its 
work  continuously  with  occasional  outbursts  of  energy.  Eticnne 
de  Gatine,  and  Pons  de  Poyet,  who  presided  over  its  tribunals  for 
many  years,  were  no  sluggards,  and  the  period  from  1373  to  1375 
rewarded  their  industry  with  an  abundant  harvest.  Though  here- 
tics naturally  grew  scarcer  with  the  unintermitting  pursuit  of  so 
many  years,  there  was  still  the  exhaustless  catalogue  of  the  dead, 
whose  exhumation  furnished  an  impressive  spectacle  for  the  mob, 
while  their  confiscations  were  welcome  to  the  pious  princes,  and 
contributed  largely  to  the  change  of  ownership  of  land  which  was 
a  political  consummation  so  desirable.  Yet  heresy  with  incredi- 
ble stubbornness  maintained  itself,  though  its  conceahnent  grew 
ever  more  difficult,  and  Italy  grew  less  safe  as  a  refuge  and  less 
prolific  as  a  source  of  inspiration.* 

In  1271  Alphonse  and  Jeanne,  who  had  accompanied  St.  Louis 
in  his  unlucky  crusade  to  Tunis,  died  without  issue,  during  the  home- 
ward journey.  The  line  of  Raymond  was  thus  extinct,  and  the 
land  passed  irrevocably  to  the  crown.  Philippe  le  Hardi  took  pos- 
session even  of  the  territories  which  Jeanne  had  endeavored,  as  Avas 
her  right,  to  alienate  by  wiU,  and  though  he  surrendered  the  Age- 
nois  to  Henry  III.,  he  succeeded  in  retaining  Querci.  No  opposi- 
tion was  made  to  the  change  of  masters.  When,  October  8, 1271, 
Guillamne  de  Cobardon,  royal  Seneschal  of  Carcassonne,  issued  his 
orders  regulating  the  new  regime,  one  of  the  first  things  thought 
of  was  the  confiscations.  All  castles  and  villages  which  had  been 
forfeited  for  heresy  were  taken  into  the  king's  hand,  without  preju- 
dice to  the  right  of  those  to  whom  they  might  belong,  thus  throw- 
ing the  burden  of  proof  upon  all  claimants,  and  cutting  out  assigns 
under  alienations.  In  1272  Philippe  paid  a  visit  to  his  new  terri- 
tories ;  it  was  designed  to  be  peaceful,  but  some  violences  commit- 
ted by  Roger  Bernard  lY.  of  Foix  caused  him  to  come  at  the  head 
of  an  army,  with  which  he  easily  overcame  the  resistance  of  the 
count,  occupied  his  lands,  and  threw  him  into  a  dungeon.  Re- 
leased in  1273,  the  count  in  1276  rendered  such  assistance  in  the 


*  Coll.  Doat,  XXV.  XXVI.— Martene  Tliesaur.  V.  1809. 


SUPREMACY   OF   THE    CROWN.  57 

invasion  of  Navarre  that  Philippe  took  him  into  favor  and  re- 
stored his  castles,  on  his  renouncing  all  allegiance  to  Aragon. 
Thus  the  last  show  of  independence  in  the  South  was  broken 
down,  and  the  monarchy  was  securely  planted  on  its  ruins.* 

This  consolidation  of  the  south  of  France  under  the  kinoes  of 
Paris  was  not  without  compensating  advantages.  The  monarch 
was  rapidly  acquiring  a  centralized  power,  which  was  very  differ- 
ent from  the  overlordship  of  a  feudal  suzerain.  The  study  of  the 
Roman  law  was  beginning  to  bear  fruit  in  the  State  as  well  as  in 
the  Church,  and  the  imperial  theories  of  absolutism  as  inherent  in 
kingsliip  were  gradually  altering  all  tlie  old  relations.  The  king's 
court  was  expanding  into  the  Parlement,  and  was  training  a  school 
of  subtle  and  resolute  civil  lawyers  who  lost  no  opportunity  of  ex- 
tending the  royal  jurisdiction,  and  of  legislating  for  the  whole  land 
in  the  guise  of  rendering  judgments.  In  the  appeals  which  came 
ever  more  thickly  crowding  into  the  Parlement  from  every  quar- 
ter, the  mailed  baron  found  himself  hopelessly  entangled  in  the 
legal  intricacies  which  were  robbing  him  of  his  seignorial  rights 
almost  without  his  knowledge ;  and  the  Ordonnances,  or  general 
laws,  which  emanated  from  the  throne,  were  constantly  encroach- 
ing on  old  privileges,  weakening  local  jurisdictions,  and  giving  to 
the  whole  country  a  body  of  jurisprudence  in  which  the  crown 
combined  both  the  legislative  and  the  executive  functions.  If  it 
thus  was  enabled  to  oppress,  it  was  likewise  stronger  to  defend, 
while  the  immense  extension  of  the  royal  domains  since  the  beg-in- 
ning  of  the  century  gave  it  the  physical  ability  to  enforce  its  grow- 
ing prerogatives. 

It  was  impossible  that  this  metamorphosis  in  the  national  in- 
stitutions could  be  effected  without  greatly  modifying  the  rela- 
tions between  Church  and  State.  Thus  even  the  sainthness  of  Louis 
IX.  did  not  prevent  him  from  defending  himself  and  his  subjects 
from  ecclesiastical  domination  in  a  spirit  very  different  from  that 
which  any  French  monarch  had  ventured  to  exhibit  since  the  days 
of  Charlemagne.  The  change  became  stiU  more  manifest  under 
his  grandson,  Philippe  le  Bel.  Though  but  seventeen  years  of  age 
when  he  succeeded  to  the  throne  in  128G,  his  rare  ability  and  vigor- 


*  Vaissette,  IV.  3-5,  9-11,  16,  24-5. — Baudouin,  Lettres  infedites  de  Philippe 
le  Bel,  Paris,  1886,  p.  125. 


58  LANGUEDOC. 

ous  temper  soon  led  bim  to  assert  the  royal  power  in  incisive  fash- 
ion. He  recognized,  within  the  boundaries  of  his  kingdom,  no  su- 
perior, secular  or  spiritual.  Had  ho  entertained  any  scruples  of 
conscience,  his  legal  counsellors  could  easily  remove  them.  To 
such  men  as  Pierre  Flotte  and  Guillaume  de  Kogaret  the  true  po- 
sition of  the  Church  was  that  of  subjection  to  the  State,  as  it  had 
been  under  the  successors  of  Constantine,  and  in  their  eyes  Boni- 
face YIII.  was  to  their  master  scarce  more  than  Pope  Yigilius  had 
been  to  Justinian.  Few  among  the  revenges  of  time  are  more 
satisfying  than  the  catastrophe  of  Anagni,  in  ]  303,  when  Nogaret 
and  Sciarra  Colonna  laid  hands  on  the  vicegerent  of  God,  and 
Boniface  passionately  replied  to  Nogaret's  reproaches,  "  I  can  pa- 
tiently endure  to  be  condemned  and  deposed  by  a  Patarin" — for 
Nogaret  was  born  at  St.  Felix  de  Caraman,  and  his  ancestors  were 
said  to  have  been  burned  as  Cathari.  If  this  be  true  he  must  have 
been  more  than  human  if  he  did  not  feel  special  gratification  when, 
at  command  of  his  master,  he  appeared  before  Clement  Y.  with  a 
formal  accusation  of  heresy  against  Boniface,  and  demanded  that 
the  dead  pope's  bones  be  dug  up  and  burned.  The  citizens  of  Tou- 
louse recognized  him  as  an  avenger  of  their  wrongs  when  they 
placed  his  bust  in  the  gallery  of  their  illustrious  men  in  the  Hotel- 
de-ville.* 

It  was  to  the  royal  power,  thus  rising  to  supremacy,  that  the 
people  instinctively  turned  for  relief  from  the  inquisitorial  tyranny 
wliich  was  becoming  insupportable.  The  authority  lodged  in  the 
hands  of  the  inquisitor  was  so  arbitrary  and  irresponsible  that 
even  with  the  purest  intentions  it  could  not  but  be  unpopular,  while 
to  the  unworthy  it  afforded  unlimited  opportunity  for  oppression 
and  the  gratification  of  tlie  basest  passions.  Dangerous  as  was 
any  manifestation  of  discontent,  the  people  of  Albi  and  Carcas- 
sonne, reduced  to  despair  by  the  cruelty  of  the  inquisitors,  Jean 
Galande  and  Jean  Yigoureux,  mustered  courage,  and  in  1280  pre- 
sented their  complaints  to  Philippe  le  Hardi.     It  was  difficult  to 

*  Raynald.  aun.  1303,  No.  41.— Vaissette,  IV.  Note  xi.— Guill.  Nangiac.  Contin. 
ann.  1303,  1309,  1310.— Nich.  Trivetti  Chron.  ann.  1306.— La  Faille,  Annales  de 
Toulouse  I.  284. 

The  irresistible  encroachment  of  the  royal  jurisdiction,  in  spite  of  perpetual 
opposition,  is  most  effectively  illustrated  in  the  series  of  royal  letters  recently 
printed  by  M.  Ad.  Baudouin  (Lettres  inedites  de  Philippe  le  Bel,  Paris,  1886). 


CONSPIRACY  AT  CARCASSONNE.         59 

sustain  their  charges  with  specific  proofs,  and  after  a  brief  investi- 
gation their  reiterated  requests  for  relief  were  dismissed  as  frivo- 
lous. In  the  agitation  against  the  Inquisition  thus  commenced,  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  heretics  had  little  to  do.  By  this  time 
they  were  completely  cowed  and  were  quite  satisfied  if  they  could 
enjoy  their  faith  in  secret.  The  opposition  arose  from  good  Cath- 
olics, the  magistrates  of  cities  and  substantial  burghers,  who  saw 
the  prosperity  of  the  land  withering  under  the  deadly  grasp  of 
the  Holy  Office,  and  who  felt  that  no  man  was  safe  whose  wealth 
might  arouse  cupidity  or  whose  independence  might  provoke  re- 
venge. The  introduction  of  the  use  of  torture  impressed  the  pop- 
ular imagination  with  special  horror,  and  it  was  widely  believed 
that  confessions  were  habitually  extorted  by  insufferable  tonnent 
from  rich  men  whose  faith  was  unblemished.  The  cruel  provisions 
w^iich  brought  confiscation  on  the  descendants  of  heretics,  more- 
over, were  peculiarly  hard  to  endure,  for  ruin  impended  over  every 
one  against  whom  the  inquisitor  might  see  fit  to  produce  from  his 
records  evidence  of  ancestral  heresy.  It  was  against  these  records 
that  the  next  attempt  was  directed.  Foiled  in  their  appeal  to  the 
throne,  the  consuls  of  Carcassonne  and  some  of  its  prominent 
ecclesiastics,  in  1283  or  12S'l:,  formed  a  conspiracy  to  destroy  the 
books  of  the  Inquisition  containing  the  confessions  and  deposi- 
tions. How  far  this  was  organized  it  would  be  difficult  now  to 
say.  The  statements  of  the  witnesses  conflict  so  hopelessly  on 
material  points,  even  as  to  dates,  that  there  is  little  dependence 
to  be  placed  on  them.  They  were  evidently  extracted  under 
torture,  and  if  they  are  credible  the  consuls  of  the  city  and  the 
archdeacon,  Sanche  Morlana,  the  episcopal  Ordinary,  Guillera 
Brunet,  other  episcopal  officials  and  many  of  the  secular  clergy 
were  not  only  implicated  in  the  plot,  but  were  heretics  in  full  affili- 
ation with  the  Cathari.  Whether  true  or  false  they  show  that 
there  w^as  the  sharpest  antagonism  between  the  Inquisition  and 
the  local  Church.  The  whole  has  an  air  of  um'eality  which  ren- 
ders one  doubtful  about  accepting  any  portion,  but  there  must 
have  been  some  foundation  for  the  story.  According  to  the  evi- 
dence Bernard  Garric,  Avho  had  been  a  perfected  heretic  and  a 
Jilius  major,  but  had  been  converted  and  was  now  a  familiar  of 
the  Inquisition,  was  selected  as  the  instrument.  lie  was  ap- 
proached, and  after  some  bargaining  he  agreed  to  deliver  the 


60  LANGUEDOC. 

books  for  two  hundred  livres  Tournois,  for  the  payment  of  which 
the  consuls  went  security.  How  the  attempt  failed  and  how  it 
was  discovered  does  not  appear,  but  probably  Bernard  at  the  first 
overtures  confided  the  plot  to  his  superiors  and  led  on  the  con- 
spirators to  their  ruin.* 

The  whole  community  was  now  at  the  mercy  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, and  it  was  not  disposed  to  be  lenient  in  its  triumph.  While 
the  trials  were  yet  going  on,  the  citizens  made  a  fresh  appeal  tc 
Pierre  Chains,  the  royal  chancellor,  who  was  passing  through  Tou- 
louse on  a  mission  from  the  court  of  Paris  to  that  of  Aragon. 
This  was  easily  disposed  of,  for  on  September  13, 1285,  the  inquis- 
itors triumphantly  brought  before  him  Bernard  Garric  to  repeat 
the  confession  made  a  week  previous.  He  had  thoroughly  learned 
his  lesson,  and  the  only  conclusion  which  the  royal  representative 
could  reach  was  that  Carcassonne  was  a  hopeless  nest  of  heretics, 
deserving  the  severest  measures  of  repression.  As  a  last  resort 
recourse  was  had  to  Honorius  IV.,  but  the  only  result  was  a  brief 
from  him  to  the  inquisitors  expressing  his  grief  that  the  people 
of  Carcassonne  should  be  impeding  the  Inquisition  with  all  their 
strength,  and  ordering  the  punishment  of  the  recalcitrants  irre- 
spective of  their  station,  order,  or  condition,  an  expression  which 
shows  that  the  opposition  had  not  arisen  from  heretics.f 

In  reply  to  these  complaints  the  inquisitors  could  urge  with 
some  truth  that  heresy,  though  hidden,  was  still  busy.  Although 
heretic  seigneurs  and  nobles  had  been  by  this  time  weU-nigh  de- 
stroyed and  their  lands  had  passed  to  others,  there  was  stiU  infec- 
tion among  the  bourgeoisie  of  the  cities  and  the  peasantry.  It  is 
one  of  the  noteworthy  features  of  Catharism,  moreover,  that  at 

*  Bern.  Guidon.  Gravam.  (Doat,  XXX.  93,  97). — Molinier  op.  cit.  p.  35. — 
Doat,  XXVI.  197,  245,  265,  266.— Lib.  Sententt.  Inq.  Tolos.  p.  282. 

Sanche  Morlana,  the  archdeacon  of  Carcassonne,  who  is  represented  as  bear- 
ing a  leading  part  in  the  conspiracy,  belonged  to  one  of  the  noblest  families  of 
the  city.  His  brother  Arnaud,  who  at  one  time  was  Seneschal  of  Foix,  was  like- 
wise implicated,  and  died  a  few  years  later  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church.  In  1328 
Jean  Duprat,  then  inquisitor,  obtained  evidence  that  Arnaud  had  been  hereti- 
cated  during  a  sickness,  and  again  subsequently  on  liis  death -bed  (Doat,  XXVIII. 
128).  This  would  seem  to  lend  color  to  the  charge  of  heresy  against  the  con- 
spirators, but  the  evidence  was  considered  too  flimsy  to  warrant  condemnation. 

t  Doat,  XXVI.  254.—  Bern.  Guidon.  Gravam.  (Doat,  XXX.  93).— Arch,  de 
I'Inq.  de  Care.  (Doat,  XXXII.  132). 


PERSISTENCE    OF    CATHAIIISM.  61 

no  time  during  its  existence  were  lacking  earnest  and  devoted  min- 
isters, who  took  their  lives  in  their  hands  and  wandered  around 
in  secret  among  the  faithful,  administering  spiritual  comfort  and 
instruction,  making  converts  where  they  could,  exhorting  the 
young  and  hereticating  the  old.  In  toil  and  hardship  and  peril 
they  pursued  their  work,  gliding  by  night  from  one  place  of  con- 
cealment to  another,  and  their  self-devotion  was  rivalled  by  that 
of  their  disciples.  Few  more  touching  narratives  can  be  conceived 
than  those  Avhich  could  be  constructed  from  the  artless  confes- 
sions extorted  from  the  peasant-folk  who  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  inquisitors  —  the  humble  alms  which  they  gave,  pieces  of 
bread,  fish,  scraps  of  cloth,  or  small  coins,  the  hiding-places  which 
they  constructed  in  their  cabins,  the  guidance  given  by  night 
through  places  of  danger,  and,  more  than  all,  the  steadfast  fidel- 
ity which  refused  to  betray  their  pastors  when  the  inquisitor  sud- 
denly appeared  and  offered  the  alternative  of  free  pardon  or  the 
duno-eon  and  confiscation.  The  self-devotion  of  the  minister  was 
well  matched  with  the  quiet  heroism  of  the  believer.  To  this 
fidelity  and  the  complete  network  of  secret  organization  which 
extended  over  the  land  may  be  attributed  the  marvellously  long 
exemption  which  many  of  these  ministers  enjoyed  in  their  prose- 
lyting missions.  Two  of  the  most  prominent  of  them  at  this 
period,  Kaymond  Delboc  and  Kaymond  Godayl,  or  Didier,  had 
already,  in  1276,  been  condemned  by  the  Inquisition  of  Carcas- 
sonne as  perfected  heretics  and  fugitives,  but  they  kept  at  their 
work  until  the  explosion  of  1300,  incessantly  active,  with  the 
inquisitors  always  in  pursuit  but  unable  to  overtake  them.  Guil- 
lem  Pages  is  another  whose  name  constantly  recurs  in  the  confes- 
sions of  heretications  during  an  almost  equally  long  period.  The 
inquisitors  might  well  urge  that  their  utmost  efforts  were  needed, 
but  their  methods  were  such  that  even  the  best  intentions  would 
not  have  saved  the  innocent  from  suffering  with  the  guilty.* 

The  secretly  guilty  were  quite  sufficiently  influential,  and  the 
innocent  sufficiently  apprehensive,  to  keep  up  the  agitation  which 
had  been  commenced,  and  at  last  it  began  to  bear  fruit.  A  new 
inquisitor  of  Carcassonne,  Nicholas  d' Abbeville,  was  quite  as  cruel 


*  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,fonds  latin,  No.  11847.— Doat,  XXVI.  197.— Lib.  Scntentt. 
Inq.  Tolos.  pp.  54,  109,  111,  130,  137,  138,  139,  143,  144,  14G,  147. 


62  LANGUEDOC. 

and  arbitrary  as  his  predecessors,  and  when  the  people  prepared 
an  appeal  to  the  king  he  promptly  threw  into  jail  the  notary  who 
drew  up  the  paper.  In  their  desperation  they  disregarded  this 
warning;  a  deputation  was  sent  to  the  court,  and  this  time  they 
were  listened  to.  May  13, 1291,  Phihppe  addressed  a  letter  to  his 
Seneschal  of  Carcassonne  reciting  the  injuries  inflicted  by  the 
Inquisition  on  the  innocent  through  the  newly-invented  system 
of  torture,  by  means  of  which  the  hving  and  the  dead  were  fraud- 
ulently convicted  and  the  whole  land  scandalized  and  rendered 
desolate.  The  royal  olRcials  were  therefore  ordered  no  longer  to 
obey  the  commands  of  the  inquisitors  in  making  arrests,  unless 
the  accused  be  a  confessed  heretic  or  persons  worthy  of  faith  vouch 
for  his  being  publicly  defamed  for  heresy.  A  month  later  he  reit- 
erated these  orders  even  more  precisely,  and  announced  his  inten- 
tion of  sending  deputies  to  Languedoc  armed  with  full  authority 
to  make  permanent  provision  in  the  matter.  It  is  impossible  to 
exaggerate  the  importance  of  these  manifestoes  as  marking  a  new 
era  in  the  relations  between  the  temporal  and  spiritual  authorities. 
For  far  less  than  this  all  the  chivalry  and  scum  of  Europe  had 
been  promised  salvation  if  they  would  drive  Kaymond  of  Toulouse 
from  his  inheritance.* 

It  was  probably  to  break  in  some  degree  the  force  of. this 
unheard-of  interference  with  inquisitorial  supremacy  that  in  Sep- 
tember, 1292,  Guillem  de  Saint-Seine,  Inquisitor  of  Carcassonne, 
ordered  aU  the  parish  priests  in  his  district  for  three  weeks  on 


*  There  lias  beeu  great  confusion  as  to  the  date  of  Philippe's  action.  The 
Ordonnance  as  printed  by  LauriSre  and  Isambert  is  of  1287.  As  given  by  Vais- 
sette  (IV.  Pr.  97-8)  it  is  of  1291.  A  copy  in  Doat,  XXXI.  266  (from  the  Regist. 
Curioe  Francise  de  Carcass.),  is  dated  1297.  Schmidt  (Cathares  I.  342)  accepts 
1287 ;  A.  Molinier  (Vaissette,  fid.  Privat,  IX.  157)  confirms  the  date  of  1291.  The 
latter  accords  best  with  the  series  of  events.  1287  would  seem  manifestly  im- 
possible, as  Philippe  was  crowned  January  6,  1286,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  and 
would  scarcely,  in  fifteen  months,  venture  on  such  a  step  so  defiant  of  all  that  was 
held  sacred;  nor  would  Nicholas  IV.  in  1290  have  praised  his  zeal  in  furthering 
the  Inquisition  (Ripoll  II.  29),  while  1297  seems  incompatible  with  his  subsequent 
action  on  the  subject. 

In  1292  Philippe  prohibited  the  capitouls  of  Toulouse  from  employing  tort- 
ure on  clerks  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  bishop,  a  prohibition  which 
had  to  be  repeated  in  1307.  —  Baudouin,  Lettres  inCdites  de  Philippe  le  Bel, 
pp.  16,  73. 


APOSTATE    JEWS.  ,  63 

Siincla3^s  and  feast-days  to  denounce  as  excommunicate  all  who 
should  impede  the  business  of  the  Inquisition  and  all  notaries  who 
should  w^ickedly  draw  up  revocations  of  confessions  for  heretics. 
This  could  not  effect  much,  nor  was  anything  accomplished  by 
a  Parlement  held  April  14,  1293,  at  MontpeUier,  by  the  royal 
chamberlain,  Alphonse  de  Konceyrac,  of  all  the  royal  officials  and 
inquisitors  of  Toulouse  and  Carcassonne  to  reform  the  abuses  of 
all  jurisdictions.* 

Shortly  after  this,  in  September,  1293,  Philippe  went  a  step  fur- 
ther and  threw  his  aegis  over  the  unfortunate  Jew.  Although 
Jews  as  a  class  were  not  liable  to  persecution  by  the  Inquisition, 
still,  if  after  being  once  converted  they  reverted  to  Judaism,  or 
if  they  proselyted  among  Christians  to  obtain  converts,  or  if  they 
were  themselves  converts  from  Christianity,  they  were  heretics  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Church,  they  fell  under  inquisitorial  jurisdiction, 
and  were  liable  to  be  abandoned  to  the  secular  arm.  All  these 
classes  were  a  source  of  endless  trouble  to  the  Church,  especially 
the  "  neophytes  "  or  converted  Jews,  for  feigned  conversions  were 
frequent,  either  for  worldly  advantage  or  to  escape  the  incessant 
persecution  visited  upon  the  unlucky  children  of  Israel.f  The 
bull  Turhato  corde,  ordering  the  inquisitors  to  be  active  and  vigi- 
lant in  prosecuting  all  who  were  guilty  of  these  offences,  issued 
in  12G8  by  Clement  IV.,  was  reissued  by  successive  popes  with  a 
pertinacity  showing  the  importance  attached  to  it,  and  when  we 
see  Frere  Bertrand  de  la  Roche,  in  127-1,  officially  described  as 
inquisitor  in  Provence  against  heretics  and  wicked  Christians  who 


*  Arch,  de  Flnq.  de  Care.  (Doat,  XXXII.  251).  —  Chron.  Bardin  ann.  1293 
(Vaissette  IV.  Pr.  9). 

f  In  1278  the  inquisitors  of  France  applied  to  Nicholas  III.  for  instructions, 
stating  that  some  time  previous,  during  a  popular  persecution  of  the  Jews,  many 
of  them  througli  fear,  though  not  absolutely  coerced,  had  received  baptism  and 
allowed  their  children  to  be  baptized.  With  the  passing  of  the  storm  they  had 
returned  to  their  Jevi'ish  blindness,  whereupon  the  inquisitors  had  cast  thera  in 
prison.  They  were  duly  excommunicated,  but  neither  this  nor  the  '■'•squalor 
career  is''"'  had  been  of  avail,  and  they  iiiid  thus  remained  for  more  than  a  year. 
The  nonplussed  inquisitors  thereujwn  sulmiittcd  to  the  Holy  See  the  question 
as  to  furtlicr  proceedings,  and  Nicholas  ordered  them  to  treat  such  Jews  as  here- 
tics— that  is  to  say,  to  burn  them  for  continued  obstinacy. — Archives  de  I'lnq. 
de  Carcassonne  (Doat,  XXXVII.  191). 


64  LANGUEDOC. 

embrace  Judaism,  and  Frcre  Guillaume  d'Auxerre,  in  1285,  quali- 
fied as  "  Inquisitor  of  Heretics  and  Apostate  Jews  in  France,"  it 
is  evident  that  these  cases  formed  a  large  portion  of  inquisitorial 
business.  As  the  Jews  were  peculiarly  defenceless,  this  jurisdic- 
tion gave  wide  opportunity  for  abuse  and  extortion  which  was 
doubtless  turned  fully  to  account.  Philippe  owed  them  protec- 
tion, for  in  1291  he  had  deprived  them  of  their  own  judges  and 
ordered  them  to  plead  in  the  royal  courts,  and  now  he  proceeded 
to  protect  them  in  the  most  emphatic  manner.  To  Simon  Brise- 
tete.  Seneschal  of  Carcassonne,  he  sent  a  copy  of  the  bull  Turbato 
corde^  with  instructions  that  while  this  was  to  be  implicitly  obeyed, 
no  Jew  was  to  be  arrested  for  any  cause  not  specified  therein, 
and,  if  there  was  any  doubt,  the  matter  was  to  be  referred  to  the 
royal  council.  He  further  enclosed  an  Ordonnance  directing  that 
no  Jew  in  France  was  to  be  arrested  on  the  requisition  of  any 
person  or  friar  of  any  Order,  no  matter  what  his  office  might 
be,  without  notifying  the  seneschal  or  bailli,  who  was  to  decide 
whether  the  case  was  sufficiently  clear  to  be  acted  upon  without 
reference  to  the  royal  council.  Simon  Brisetete  thereupon  ordered 
all  officials  to  defend  the  Jews,  not  to  allow  any  exactions  to  be 
imposed  on  them  whereby  their  ability  to  pay  their  taxes  might 
be  impaired,  and  not  to  arrest  them  at  the  mandate  of  any  one 
without  informing  him  of  the  cause.  It  would  not  have  been 
easy  to  limit  more  skilfully  the  inquisitorial  power  to  oppress  a 
despised  class.* 

Philippe  had  thus  intervened  in  the  most  decided  manner,  and 
the  oppressed  populations  of  Languedoc  might  reasonably  hope 
for  permanent  relief,  but  his  subsequent  policy  belied  their  hopes. 
It  vacillated  in  a  manner  which  is  only  partially  explicable  by  the 


*  Mag.  Bull.  Roman.  1. 151, 155, 159. — Archivio  di  Napoli,  Registro  20,  Lett. 
B,  fol.  91.— MSS.  Bib.  Nat,  fonds  latin.  No.  14930,  fol.  227-8.— Wadding,  ann. 
1290,  No.  5,  6.— C.  13,  Sexto  v.  2.— Coll.  Doat,  XXXII.  127 ;  XXXVII.  193,  206, 
209,  242,  255,  258.— Wadding,  ann.  1359,  No.  1-3.— Lib.  Sentontt.  Inq.  Tolos. 
p.  230. 

In  1288  Philippe  had  already  ordered  the  Seneschal  of  Carcassonne  to  pro- 
tect the  Jews  from  the  citations  and  other  vexations  inflicted  on  them  by  the 
ecclesiastical  courts  (Vaissette,  fid.  Privat,  IX.  Pr.  232).  Yet  in  1306  he  had 
all  the  Jews  of  the  kingdom  seized  and  exiled,  and  forbidden  to  return  under 
pain  of  death  (Guill.  Nangiac.  Contin.  ann.  1306). 


INTERVENTION    OF    PHILIPPE    LE    BEL.  65 

shifting  political  exigencies  of  the  times  so  far  as  we  can  pene- 
trate them.  In  this  same  year,  1293,  the  Seneschal  of  Carcassonne 
is  found  instructing  Aimeric,  the  Viscount  of  Narbonne,  to  exe- 
cute royal  letters  ordering  aid  to  be  rendered  to  the  inquisitors 
there.  This  may  have  been  a  mere  local  matter,  and  Philippe, 
for  a  while  at  least,  adhered  to  his  position.  Towards  the  end 
of  1295  there  was  issued  an  Ordonnance  of  the  royal  court,  appli- 
cable to  the  whole  kingdom,  forbidding  the  arrest  of  any  one  on 
the  demand  of  a  friar  of  any  Order,  no  matter  what  his  position 
might  be,  unless  the  seneschal  or  bailli  of  the  jurisdiction  was 
satisfied  that  the  arrest  should  be  made,  and  the  person  asking  it 
showed  a  commission  from  the  pope.  This  was  sent  to  all  the 
royal  officials  with  strict  injunctions  to  obey  it,  although,  if  the 
accused  were  likely  to  fly,  he  might  be  detained,  but  not  surren- 
dered until  the  decision  of  the  court  could  be  had.  Moreover,  if 
any  persons  were  then  in  durance  contrary  to  the  provisions  of 
the  Ordonnance,  they  were  to  be  set  at  liberty.  Even  this  did 
not  effect  its  object  sufficiently,  and  a  few  months  later,  in  1296, 
Philippe  complained  to  his  Seneschal  of  Carcassonne  of  the  num- 
bers who  were  arrested  by  the  royal  officers,  and  confined  in  the 
royal  prisons  on  insufficient  grounds,  causing  scandal  and  the  heavy 
infliction  of  infamy  on  the  innocent.  To  prevent  this  arrests 
were  forbidden  except  in  cases  of  such  violent  presumption  of 
heresy  that  they  could  not  be  postponed,  and  the  oflicials  were 
instructed,  when  called  upon  by  the  inquisitors,  to  make  such  ex- 
cuses as  they  could.  These  orders  were  obeyed,  for  when,  about 
this  time,  Foulques  de  Saint  -  Georges,  Vice  -  inquisitor  of  Carcas- 
sonne, ordered  the  arrest  of  sundry  suspects  by  Adam  de  Marolles, 
the  deputy  seneschal,  the  latter  referred  the  matter  to  his  princi- 
pal, Henri  de  Elisia,  who,  after  consultation  with  Robert  d'Artois, 
lieutenant  of  the  king  in  Languedoc  and  Gascony,  refused  the  de- 
mand.* 

No  previous  sovereign  had  ventured  thus  to  trammel  the  In- 
quisition. These  regulations,  in  fact,  rendered  it  virtually  power- 
less, for  it  had  no  organization  of  its  own ;  even  its  prisons  were 
the  king's  and  might  be  withdrawn  at  any  time,  and  it  depended 


•  Regist.  Curise  Francis  de  Care.  (Boat,  XXXIT.  254,  267,  268,  269).— Vais- 
sette,  IV.  Pr.  99. 

n.— 5 


66  LANGUEDOU. 

wholly  upon  the  secular  arm  for  physical  force.  In  some  places, 
as  at  Albi,  it  might  rely  upon  episcopal  assistance,  but  elsewhere 
it  could  do  nothing  of  itself.  Philippe  had,  moreover,  been  care- 
ful not  to  excite  the  ill-will  of  his  bishops,  for  his  Ordonnances 
and  instructions  alluded  simply  to  the  friars,  thus  excluding  the 
Inquisition  from  royal  aid  without  specifically  naming  it.  His 
quarrel  with  Boniface  VIII.  was  now  beginning.  Between  Janu- 
ary, 1296,  and  February,  1297,  appeared  the  celebrated  bulls  Cleri- 
cis  laicos,  Ineffabilis  arnoris,  Excitat  nos,  and  Exiit  a  te^  whose 
arrogant  encroachments  on  the  secular  power  aroused  him  to  re- 
sistance, and  this  doubtless  gave  a  sharper  zest  to  his  desire  to 
diminish  in  his  dominions  the  authority  of  so  purely  papal  an  in- 
stitution as  the  Inquisition.  So  shrewd  a  prince  could  readily  see 
its  effectiveness  as  an  instrument  of  papal  aggression,  for  the 
Church  could  make  what  definition  it  pleased  of  heresy ;  and 
Boniface  did  not  hesitate  to  give  him  fair  warning,  when,  in  Oc- 
tober, 1297,  he  ordered  the  Inquisitor  of  Carcassonne  to  proceed 
against  certain  officials  of  Beziers  who  had  rendered  themselves 
in  the  papal  eyes  suspect  of  heresy  because  they  remained  under 
excommunication,  incurred  for  imposing  taxes  on  the  clergy,  boast- 
ing that  food  had  not  lost  its  savor  to  them  nor  sleep  its  sweet- 
ness, and  who,  moreover,  dared  with  poUuted  lips  to  revile  the 
Holy  See  itself.  Under  such  an  extension  of  jurisdiction  Philippe 
himself  might  not  be  safe,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  tentative  ef- 
forts made  in  1296  and  1297  to  find  some  method  of  reconcihng 
the  recent  royal  Ordonnances  with  the  time-honored  absolutism 
of  the  Inquisition  proved  failures.* 

Meanwhile,  the  exigencies  of  Italian  politics  caused  Boniface 
suddenly  to  retrace  his  steps.  His  quarrel  with  the  Cardinals 
Giacomo  and  Pietro  Colonna  rendered  it  advisable  to  propitiate 
Philippe.  In  May,  1297,  he  assented  to  a  tithe  conceded  to  the 
king  by  his  bishops,  and  in  the  bull  Noveritis  (July,  1297)  he  ex- 
empted France  from  the  operation  of  the  Clericis  laicos^  while  in 
Licet  jper  s^eciales  (July,  1298)  he  withdrew  his  arrogant  preten- 
sion imperatively  to  prolong  the  armistice  between  France  and 


*  Du  Puy,  Histoire  du  DiflFerend,  etc.  Pr.  14, 15,  23,  24.— D'Argentr^,  Collect. 
Judic.  de  novis  Error.  I.  1. 125. — Vaissette,  IV.  Pr,  99. — Arcb.  de  Tlnq.  de  Care. 
(Doat,  XXXII.  264).— FaucoD,  Registres  de  Boniface  VIII.  No.  2140. 


VARYING    POLICY    OF    PHILIPPE.  67 

England.  A  truce  was  thus  patched  up  with  Phihppe,  who  has- 
tened to  manifest  his  good- will  to  the  Holy  See  by  abandoning 
his  subjects  again  to  the  inquisitors.  In  the  Liber  Sextus  of  the 
Decretals,  published  by  Boniface  March  3, 1298,  the  pope  included, 
with  customary  imperiousness,  a  canon  commanding  the  absolute 
obedience  of  all  secular  officials  to  the  orders  of  inquisitors  under 
penalty  of  excommunication,  which  if  endured  for  a  year  carried 
with  it  condemnation  for  heresy.  This  was  his  answer  to  the 
French  monarch's  insubordinate  legislation,  and  Philippe  at  the 
moment  was  not  inclined  to  contest  the  matter.  In  September 
he  meekly  enclosed  the  canon  to  his  officials  with  instructions  to 
obey  it  in  every  point,  arresting  and  imprisoning  all  whom  inquisi- 
tors or  bishops  might  designate,  and  punishing  all  whom  they 
might  condemn.  A  letter  of  Frere  Arnaud  Jean,  Inquisitor  of 
Pamiers,  dated  March  2,  of  the  same  year,  assuring  the  Jews  that 
they  need  dread  no  novel  measures  of  severity,  would  seem  to  in- 
dicate that  the  royal  protection  had  been  previously  withdrawn 
from  them.  The  good  understanding  between  king  and  pope 
lasted  until  1300,  when  the  quarrel  broke  out  afresh  with  greater 
acrimony  than  ever.  In  December  of  that  year  the  provisions  of 
CleriGis  laioos  were  renewed  by  the  bull  Nuper  ex  rationaUlihus, 
followed  by  the  short  one,  of  which  the  authenticity  is  disputed, 
Scire  te  volum/us,  asserting  Philippe's  subjection  in  temporal  affairs 
and  calling  forth  his  celebrated  rejoinder,  Sciat  tua  maxima  fatui- 
tas.  The  strife  continued  with  increasing  violence  till  the  seizure 
of  Boniface  at  Anagni,  September  8,  1303,  and  his  death  in  the 
following  month.* 

Under  this  varying  policy  the  fate  of  the  people  of  Languedoc 
was  hard.  Nicholas  d' Abbeville,  the  Inquisitor  of  Carcassonne, 
was  a  man  of  inflexible  severity,  arrogantly  bent  on  pushing  his 
prerogatives  to  the  utmost.  He  had  an  assistant  Avorthy  of  him  in 
Foulques  de  Saint-Georges,  the  Prior  of  the  Convent  of  Albi,  which 
was  under  his  jurisdiction.  He  had  virtually  another  assistant  in 
the  bishop,  Bernard  de  Castanet,  who  delighted  to  act  as  inquisi- 
tor, impelled  alike  by  fanaticism  and  by  greed,  for,  as  we  have 

*  Du  Puy,  op.  cit.  Pr.  39,41,  42,  44.  —  Faucon,  Registres  de  Bouiface  VTIT. 
No.  1822-3,  No.  1829,  No.  1830-1,  No.  1930.— C.  18  Sexto  v.  2.— Isambert.  Anc. 
Loix  Franp.  II.  718.— Vaissette,  fM.  Privat,  X.  Pr.  347.— Aicliives  de  ll;vecli6 
d'Albi  (Doat,  XXXII.  275). 


68  LANGUEDOC. 

seen,  the  bishops  of  Albi,  by  a  special  transaction  with  St.  Louia 
enjoyed  a  half  of  the  confiscations.  J?rior  to  his  elevation  in  1276 
l>ernard  had  been  auditor  of  the  papal  camera,  which  shows  him 
to  have  been  an  accom[)lished  legist,  and  he  was  also  a  patron  of 
art  and  literature,  but  he  Avas  ever  in  trouble  with  his  people.  Al- 
ready, in  1277,  he  had  succeeded  in  so  exasperating  them  that  his 
palace  was  swept  l)y  a  howling  jnob,  and  he  barely  escaped  with 
his  life.  In  12S2  he  commenced  the  erection  of  the  cathedral  of 
St.  Cecilia,  a  gigantic  building,  half  church,  half  fortress,  which 
swallowed  enormous  sums,  and  stimulated  his  hatred  of  heresy  by 
supplying  a  pious  use  for  the  estates  of  heretics.* 

To  such  men  the  protection  granted  to  his  subjects  by  Philippe 
was  most  distasteful,  and  not  without  reason.  Heretics  naturally 
took  advantage  of  the  restrictions  imposed  on  the  Inquisition  and 
redoubled  their  activity.  It  might  seem,  indeed,  to  them  that  the 
day  of  supremacy  of  the  Church  was  past,  and  that  the  rising  in- 
dependence of  the  secular  power  might  usher  in  an  era  of  com- 
parative toleration,  in  which  their  persecuted  religion  would  at 
length  find  its  oft-deferred  opportunity  of  converting  mankind — 
a  dream  in  which  they  indulged  to  the  last.  More  demonstrative, 
if  not  more  earnest,  was  the  feeling  which  the  royal  policy  aroused 
in  Carcassonne.  The  Ordonnances  had  not  only  crippled  the  In- 
quisition, but  had  shown  the  disfavor  with  which  it  was  regarded 
by  the  king,  and  in  1295  some  of  the  leading  citizens,  who  had 
been  compromised  in  the  trials  of  1285,  found  no  difiiculty  in 
arousing  the  people  to  open  resistance.  For  a  while  they  con- 
trolled the  city,  and  inflicted  no  little  injury  on  the  Dominicans, 
and  on  all  who  ventured  to  support  them.  Nicholas  d' Abbeville 
was  driven  from  the  pulpit  when  preaching,  pelted  with  stones 
and  pursued  with  drawn  swords,  and  the  judges  of  the  royal  court 
on  one  occasion  were  glad  to  escape  with  their  lives,  while  the 
friars  were  beaten  and  insulted  when  they  appeared  in  public  and 
were  practically  segregated  as  excommunicates.     Bernard  Gui,  an 

*  C.  Molinier,  L'luq.  dans  le  midi  de  la  France,  p.  92. — A.  Molinier  (Vaissette, 
f^d.  Privat,  IX.  307).  The  character  and  power  of  tlie  bishops  of  Albi  are  illus- 
trated in  a  successor  of  Bernard  de  Castanet,  Bishop  Geraud,  who  in  1312,  to 
settle  a  quarrel  with  the  Seigneur  de  Puygozon,  raised  an  army  of  five  thousand 
men  with  which  he  attacked  the  royal  Chateau  Vieux  d'Albi,  and  committed 
much  devastation. — Vaissette,  IV.  160. 


SUBMISSION    OF    CARCASSONNE.  69 

eye-witness,  naturally  attributes  this  to  the  influence  of  heresy, 
but  it  is  impossible  for  us  now  to  conjecture  how  much  may  have 
been  clue  to  religious  antagonism,  and  how  much  to  the  natural 
reaction  among  the  orthodox  against  the  intolerable  oppression 
of  the  inquisitorial  methods.* 

For  some  years  the  Inquisition  of  Carcassonne  was  suspended. 
As  soon  as  secular  support  Avas  withdrawn  pubhc  opinion  was  too 
strong,  and  it  succumbed.  This  lasted  until  the  truce  between 
king  and  pope  again  placed  the  royal  power  at  the  disposal  of  the 
inquisitors.  In  their  despair  the  citizens  then  sent  envoys  to  Boni- 
face VIII.,  with  Aimeric  Castel  at  their  head,  supported  by  a  num- 
ber of  Franciscans.  Boniface  listened  to  their  complaints  and  pro- 
posed to  depute  the  Bishop  of  Vicenza  as  commissioner  to  examine 
and  report,  but  the  papal  referendary,  afterwards  Cardinal  of  S. 
Sabina,  required  a  bribe  of  ten  tliousand  florins  as  a  preliminary. 
It  was  promised  him,  but  Aimeric,  having  secured  the  good  offices 
of  Pierre  Flotte  and  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  thought  he  could  ob- 
tain his  purpose  for  less,  and  refused  to  pay  it.  When  Boniface 
heard  of  tlie  refusal  he  angrily  exclaimed,  "  We  know  in  whom 
they  trust,  but  by  God  aH  the  kings  in  Christendom  shaU.  not  save 
the  people  of  Carcassonne  from  being  burned,  and  specially  the 
father  of  that  Aimeric  Castel !"  The  nenrotiation  fell  throuo;h,  and 
Nicholas  d'AbbeviUe  had  his  triumph.  A  large  portion  of  the 
citizens  were  wearied  with  the  disturbances,  and  were  impatient 
under  the  excommunication  which  rested  on  the  community.  The 
prosperity  of  the  town  was  declining,  and  there  were  not  wanting 
those  who  predicted  its  ruin.  The  hopelessness  of  further  resist- 
ance was  apparent,  and  matters  being  thus  ripe  for  a  settlement,  a 
solemn  assembly  was  held,  April  27, 1209,  when  the  civic  magis- 
trates met  the  inquisitor  in  the  presence  of  the  Bishops  of  Albi 
and  Beziers,  Bertrand  de  Clermont,  Inquisitor  of  Toulouse,  the 
royal  officials,  sundry  abbots  and  other  notables.  Nicholas  dic- 
tated his  own  terms  for  the  absolution  asked  at  his  hands,  nor 
were  they  seemingly  harsh.  Those  who  were  manifest  heretics, 
or  specially  defamed,  or  convicted  by  legal  proof  must  take  their 
chance.    The  rest  were  to  be  penanced  as  the  bishops  and  the  Ab- 


*  Bern.  Guidon.  Hist.  Conv.  Prgcdic.  (Martcnc  Coll.  Ampl.  VI.  477-8). — Ejusd. 
Gravam.  (Doat,  XXX.  94). 


70  LANGUEDOC. 

bot  of  Fontfroidc  might  advise,  excluding  confiscation  and  per- 
sonal or  humiliating  penalties.  All  this  was  reasonable  enough 
from  an  ecclesiastical  point  of  view,  but  so  deep-seated  was  the 
distrust,  or  so  strong  the  heretical  influence,  that  the  people  asked 
twenty-four  hours  for  consideration,  and  on  reasseml)ling  the  next 
day  refused  the  terms.  Six  months  passed,  their  helplessness  and 
isolation  each  day  becoming  more  apparent,  until,  Octo])er  S,  they 
reassembled,  and  the  consuls  asked  for  absolution  in  the  name  of 
the  community.  ]>[icholas  was  not  severe.  The  penance  imposed 
on  the  town  was  the  building  of  a  chapel  in  honor  of  St.  Louis, 
which  was  accomplished  in  the  j^ear  1300  at  the  cost  of  ninety  livi*es 
Tournois.  The  consuls,  in  the  name  of  the  community,  secretly  ab- 
jured heresy.  Twelve  of  the  most  guilty  citizens  were  reserved 
for  special  penances,  viz.,  four  of  the  old  consuls,  four  councillors, 
two  advocates,  and  two  notaries.  Of  these  the  fate  was  doubtless 
deplorable.  Chance  has  preserved  to  us  the  sentence  passed  on 
one  of  the  authors  of  the  troubles,  Guillem  Garric,  by  which  \re 
find  that  he  rotted  in  the  horrible  dungeon  of  Carcassonne  for 
twenty-two  years  before  he  was  brought  forward  for  judgment  in 
1321,  when  in  consideration  of  his  long  confinement  he  was  given 
the  choice  between  the  crusade  and  exile,  and  the  crushed  old  man 
fell  on  his  knees  and  gave  thanks  to  Jesus  Christ  and  to  the  in- 
quisitors for  the  mercy  vouchsafed  him.  Some  years  later  intense 
excitement  was  created  when  Frere  Bernard  Delicieux  obtained 
sight  of  the  agreement,  and  discovered  that  the  consuls  had  been 
represented  in  it  as  confessing  that  the  whole  community  had 
given  aid  to  manifest  heretics,  that  they  had  abjured  in  the  name 
of  all,  and  thus  that  all  citizens  were  incapacitated  for  office  and 
were  exposed  to  the  penalties  of  relapse  in  case  of  further  trouble. 
This  excited  the  people  to  such  a  point  that  the  inquisitor,  Geof- 
froi  d'Ablis,  was  obliged  to  issue  a  solemn  declaration,  August  10, 
1303,  disclaiming  any  intention  of  thus  taking  advantage  of  the 
settlement ;  and  notwithstanding  this,  when  King  Philippe  came 
to  Carcassonne  in  1305  the  agreement  was  pronounced  fraudulent, 
the  seneschal  Gui  Caprier  was  dismissed  for  having  affixed  his 
seal  to  it,  and  confessed  that  he  had  been  bribed  to  do  so  by  Nicho- 
las d' Abbeville  with  a  thousand  livres  Tournois.* 


MSS.  Bib.  Nat,  fonds  latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  18, 119-23, 129, 135-6, 292.— Arch. 


PROSECUTIONS    AT    ALBI.  7X 

Encouraged  by  the  crippling  and  suspension  of  the  Inquisition, 
the  Catliaran  propaganda  had  been  at  work  with  renewed  vigor. 
In  1299  the  Council  of  Beziers  sounded  the  alarm  by  announcing 
that  perfected  heretics  had  made  their  appearance  in  the  land,  and 
ordering  close  search  made  after  them.  At  Albi,  Bishop  Bernard 
was,  as  usual,  at  variance  with  his  flock,  who  were  pleading  against 
him  in  the  royal  court  to  preserve  their  jurisdiction.  The  occa- 
sion was  op})ortune.  He  called  to  his  assistance  the  inquisitors 
Nicholas  d' Abbeville  and  Bertrand  de  Clermont,  and  towards  the 
close  of  the  year  1299  the  town  was  startled  by  the  arrest  of 
twenty-five  of  the  wealthiest  and  most  respected  citizens,  whose 
regular  attendance  at  mass  and  observance  of  all  rebgious  duties 
had  rendered  them  above  suspicion.  The  trials  were  pushed  with 
unusual  celerity,  and,  from  the  manner  in  which  those  who  at  first 
denied  were  speedily  brought  to  confession  and  to  revealing  the 
names  of  their  associates,  there  Avas  doubtless  good  ground  for  the 
popular  belief  that  torture  was  ruthlessly  and  unsparingly  used ; 
in  fact,  allusions  to  it  in  the  final  sentence  of  Guilleni  Calverie, 
one  of  the  victims,  leave  no  doubt  on  the  subject.  Abjuration 
saved  them  from  the  stake,  but  the  sentence  of  perpetual  impris- 
onment in  chains  was  a  doubtful  mercy  for  those  who  were  sen- 
tenced, while  a  number  were  kept  interminably  in  jail  awaiting 
judgment.* 

The  whole  country  was  ripe  for  revolt.  The  revival  of  Phi- 
lippe's quarrel  with  Boniface  soon  gave  assurance  that  help  might 
be  expected  from  the  throne ;  but  if  this  should  fail  there  would 
be  scant  hesitation  on  the  part  of  desperate  men  in  looking  for 
some  other  sovereign  who  would  lend  an  ear  to  their  complaints. 
The  arrest  and  trial  for  treason  of  the  Bishop  of  Pamiers,  in  1301, 
shows  us  what  was  then  the  undercurrent  of  popular  feeling  in 
Languedoc,  where  the  Frenchman  was  still  a  hated  stranger,  the 
king  a  foreign  despot,  and  the  people  discontented  and  ready  to 
shift  their  allegiance  to  either  England  or  Aragon  whenever  they 
could  see  their  advantage  in  it.     The  fragile  tenure  with  which 

de  I'Inq.  de  Care.  (Boat,  XXXII.  283).— Vaissette,  IV.  91 ;  Pr.  100-2.— Lib.  Sen- 
tentt.  Inq.  Tolos.  pp.  282-5.— Coll.  Doat,  XXXIV.  21. 

*  Concil.  Biterrens.  ann.  1299,  c.  3  (Vaissette,  IV.  96).— MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fouds 
latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  264,  270.— Archives  de  I'Eveehg  d'Albi  (Doat,  XXXV.  69). 
—MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fends  latin,  No.  11847.— Lib.  Sententt.  Inquis.  Tolos.  p.  266. 


72  LANGUEDOC. 

the  land  was  still  held  by  the  Kings  of  Paris  must  be  kept  in  vie"W 
if  we  would  understand  I?hilippe's  shifting  policy.* 

The  prosecutions  of  Albi  caused  general  terror,  for  the  victims 
were  universally  thouglit  to  be  good  Catholics,  selected  for  spolia- 
tion on  account  of  their  wealth.  The  conviction  was  widespread 
that  such  inquisitors  as  Jean  de  Faugoux,  Guillem  de  Mulceone, 
Jean  de  Saint -Seine,  Jean  Galande,  Nicholas  d' Abbeville,  and 
Foulques  de  Saint-Georges  had  long  had  no  scruple  in  obtaining, 
by  threats  and  torture,  such  testimony  as  they  might  desire 
against  any  one  whom  they  might  wish  to  ruin,  and  that  their 
records  were  falsified,  and  filled  with  fictitious  entries  for  that 
purpose.  Some  years  before,  Frere  Jean  Martin,  a  Dominican, 
had  invoked  the  interposition  of  Pierre  de  Montbrun,  Archbishop 
of  lN"arboniie  (died  1286),  to  put  a  stop  to  this  iniquity.  Some 
investigation  was  made,  and  the  truth  of  the  charges  was  estab- 
lished. The  dead  were  found  to  be  the  special  prey  of  these  ^allt- 
ures,  who  had  prepared  their  frauds  in  advance.  Even  the  fierce 
orthodoxy  of  the  Marechaux  de  la  Foi  could  not  save  Gui  de  Levis 
of  Mirepoix  from  this  posthumous  attack ;  and,  when  Gautier  de 
Montbrun,  Bishop  of  Carcassonne,  died,  they  produced  from  their 
records  proof  that  he  had  adored  heretics  and  had  been  hereticated 
on  his  death-bed.  In  this  latter  case,  fortunately,  the  archbishop 
happened  to  know  that  one  of  the  witnesses,  Jourdain  Ferrolh, 
had  been  absent  at  the  time  when,  by  his  alleged  testimony,  he 
had  seen  the  act  of  adoration.  Frere  Jean  Martin  urged  the  arch- 
bishop to  destroy  all  the  records  and  cause  the  Dominicans  to  be 
deprived  of  their  functions,  and  the  prelate  made  some  attempt  at 
Eome  to  effect  this,  contenting  himself  meanwhile  with  issuing 
some  regulations  and  sequestrating  some  of  the  books.  It  was 
probably  during  this  flurry  that  the  Inquisitors  of  Carcassonne 
and  Toulouse,  Nicholas  d' Abbeville  and  Pierre  de  Mulceone,  hear- 
ing that  they  were  likely  to  be  convicted  of  fraud,  retired  with 
their  records  to  the  safe  retreat  of  Prouille  and  busied  themselves 
in  making  a  transcript,  with  the  compromising  entries  omitted, 
which  they  ingeniously  bound  in  the  covers  stripped  from  the  old 
volumes,  t  

*  Du  Puy,  Hist,  du  DifFerend,  Pr.  633  sqq.  653-4.  — Martene  Thesaur.  I, 
1320-36. 

+  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  125-8,  139. 


CASE    OP    CASTEL    FABRI.  73 

About  this  time  occurred  a  case  which  confirms  the  po])ular 
behef  in  inquisitorial  iniquity,  and  which  had  results  of  vastly 
greater  importance  than  its  promoters  anticipated.  When  the 
disappointed  Boniface  VIII.  swore  that  he  would  cause  the  burn- 
ing of  Aimeric  Castel's  father,  he  uttered  no  idle  threat.  Nicholas 
d' Abbeville,  a  fitting  instrument,  was  at  hand,  and  to  him  he  pri- 
vately gave  the  necessary  verbal  instructions.  Castel  Fabri,  the 
father,  had  been  a  citizen  of  Carcassonne  distinguished  for  piety 
and  benevolence  no  less  than  for  wealth.  A  friend  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan Order,  after  duly  receiving  the  sacraments,  he  had  died,  in 
1278,  in  the  hands  of  its  friars,  six  of  whom  kept  watch  in  the 
sick-room  until  his  death,  and  he  had  been  buried  in  the  Francis- 
can cemetery.  We  have  seen  in  the  case  of  the  Count  of  Foix 
how  easily  all  these  precautions  could  be  brushed  aside,  and  Nich- 
olas found  no  difficulty  in  discovering  or  making  the  evidence  he 
required.*  Suddenly,  in  1300,  the  people  of  Carcassonne  were 
startled  by  a  notice,  read  in  all  the  parish  churches,  summoning 
those  wishing  to  defend  the  memory  of  Castel  Fabri  to  appear  be- 
fore the  Inquisition  on  a  day  named,  as  the  deceased  was  proved 
to  have  been  hereticated  on  his  death-bed.  The  moment  was  well 
chosen,  as  Aimeric  Castel,  the  son,  was  absent.  The  Franciscans, 
for  whom  the  accused  had  doubtless  provided  liberally  in  his  will, 
felt  themselves  called  upon  to  assume  his  defence.  Hastily  con- 
sulting, they  determined  to  send  their  lector,  Bernard  de  Licgossi, 
or  Delicieux,  to  the  General  Chapter  then  assembling  at  Marseilles, 
for  instructions,  as,  in  the  chronic  antagonism  between  the  Mendi- 
cants, the  matter  seemed  to  be  regarded  as  an  assault  on  the  Or- 
der. The  wife  of  Aimeric  Castel  provided  for  the  expenses  of  the 
journey,  and  Bernard  returned  with  instructions  from  the  pro- 
vincial to  defend  the  memory  of  the  deceased,  while  Eleazar  de 


*  In  a  series  of  confessions  extracted  from  Master  Arnaucl  Matha,  a  clerk  of 
Carcassonne,  in  1285,  there  are  two,  of  October  4  and  10,  in  which  he  de- 
scribes all  the  details  of  the  herctication  of  Castel  Fabri  on  his  death-bed,  in 
1278  (Doat,  XXVI.  258-60).  Wliile  tliese  cannot  be  positively  said  to  be  inter- 
polations, they  have  the  appearance  of  being  so,  and  it  may  safely  be  assumed  as 
impossible  that  such  a  matter  would  have  been  allowed  to  lie  dormant  for  fifteen 
years  with  so  rich  a  prize  within  reach.  Tlie  case  is  doubtless  one  of  the  forged 
records  which,  as  we  have  seen,  were  popularly  believed  to  be  customary  in  the 
Inquisition. 


74  LANGUEDOC. 

Clermont,  the  syndic  of  the  convent,  was  deputed  by  the  Guardian 
of  Narbonne  to  co-operate  with  him.  Meanwhile  ^Nicholas  had 
proceeded  to  condemnation,  and  when,  July  4,  1300,  Bernard 
and  Eleazar  presented  themselves  to  offer  the  testimony  of  the 
friars  who  had  watched  the  dying  man,  Nicholas  received  them 
standing,  refused  to  hsten  to  them,  and  on  their  urging  their  evi- 
dence left  the  room  in  the  most  contemptuous  manner.  In  the 
afternoon  they  returned  to  ask  for  a  certificate  of  their  offer  and 
its  refusal,  but  found  the  door  of  the  Inquisition  closed,  and  could 
not  effect  an  entrance. 

The  next  step  was  to  take  an  appeal  to  the  Holy  See  and  ask 
for  "  Apostoli,"  but  this  was  no  easy  matter.  So  general  was  the 
terror  inspired  by  Nicholas  that  the  doctor  of  decretals,  Jean  de 
Penne,  to  whom  they  applied  to  draw  the  paper,  refused  unless 
his  name  should  be  kept  inviolably  secret,  and  nmeteen  years  after- 
wards Bernard  when  on  trial  refused  to  reveal  it  until  compelled 
to  do  so.  To  obtain  a  notary  to  authenticate  the  appeal  was  still 
harder.  All  those  in  Carcassonne  absolutely  refused,  and  it  was 
found  necessary  to  bring  one  from  a  distance,  so  that  it  was  not  un- 
til July  16  that  the  document  was  ready  for  service.  How  serious- 
ly, indeed,  all  parties  regarded  what  should  have  been  a  very  simple 
business  is  shown  by  the  winding-up  of  the  appeal,  which  places, 
until  the  case  is  decided,  not  only  the  body  of  Castel  Fabri,  but 
the  appellants  and  the  whole  Franciscan  convent,  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Holy  See.  When  they  went  to  serve  the  instrument 
on  Nicholas  the  doors,  as  before,  were  found  closed  and  entrance 
could  not  be  effected.  It  was  therefore  read  in  the  street  and  left 
tacked  on  the  door,  to  be  taken  down  and  treasured  and  brought 
forward  in  evidence  against  Bernard  in  1319.  We  have  no  further 
records  of  the  case,  but  that  the  appeal  was  ineffectual  is  visible 
in  the  fact  that  in  1322-3  the  accounts  of  Arnaud  AssaUt  show 
that  the  royal  treasury  was  still  receiving  an  income  from  the 
confiscated  estates  of  Castel  Fabri ;  while  in  1329  the  stiU  unsatis- 
fied vengeance  of  the  Inquisition  ordered  the  bones  of  his  wife 
Rixende  to  be  exhumed.* 


*  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  14-16,  29-30,  35, 120, 148.— Coll. 
Boat,  XXVII.  178;  XXXIV.  123,  189. 

As  late  as  1338  the  confiscated  house  of  Castel  Fabri  at  Carcassonne  was  the 
subject  of  a  reclamation  by  Pierre  de  Manse  who  claimed  that  Philippe  le  Bel 


BERNARD    DfiLICIEUX.  75 

The  case  of  Castel  Fabri  might  have  passed  unnoticed,  like 
thousands  of  others,  had  it  not  chanced  to  bring  into  collision  with 
the  Inquisition  the  lector  of  the  convent  of  Carcassonne.  Bernard 
Delicieux  was  no  ordinary  man,  in  fact  a  contemporary  assures  us 
that  in  the  whole  Franciscan  Order  there  were  few  who  were  his 
equals.  Entering  the  Order  about  1284,  his  position  of  lector  or 
teacher  shows  the  esteem  felt  for  his  learning,  for  the  Mendicants 
were  ever  careful  in  selecting  those  to  whom  they  confided  such 
functions ;  and,  moreover,  we  find  him  in  relations  with  the  lead- 
ing minds  of  the  age,  such  as  Raymond  Lully  and  Arnaldo  de 
Vilanova.  His  eloquence  made  him  much  in  request  as  preacher ; 
his  persuasiveness  enabled  him  to  control  those  with  whom  he 
came  in  contact,  while  his  enthusiastic  ardor  prompted  him  to 
make  any  sacrifices  necessary  to  a  cause  which  had  once  enlisted 
his  sympathies.  He  was  no  latitudinarian  or  time-server,  for  when 
the  split  came  in  his  own  Order  he  embraced,  to  his  ruin,  the  side 
of  the  Spiritual  Franciscans,  with  the  same  disregard  of  self  as  he 
had  manifested  in  his  dealings  with  the  Inquisition.  He  was  no 
admirer  of  toleration,  for  he  devoutly  wished  the  extermination  of 
heresy,  but  experience  and  observation  had  convinced  him  that 
in  Dominican  hands  the  Inquisition  was  merel}"  an  instrument  of 
oppression  and  extortion,  and  he  imagined  that  by  transferring  it 
to  the  Franciscans  its  usefulness  would  be  preserved  while  its  evils 
would  be  removed.  Boniface  VIIL,  as  we  have  seen,  about  this 
time  replaced  the  Franciscan  inquisitors  of  Padua  and  Yicenza  with 
Dominicans  for  the  purpose  of  repressing  similar  evils,  and  in  the 
jealousy  and  antagonism  between  the  two  orders  the  converse 
operation  might  seem  worth  attempting  in  Languedoc.  In  tlie 
hope  of  alleviating  the  sufferings  of  the  people,  Bernard  devoted 
himself  to  the  cause  for  years,  incurring  obloquy,  persecution,  and 
ingratitude.  Those  whom  he  sought  to  serve  allowed  him  to  sell 
his  books  in  their  service,  and  to  cripple  himself  with  debt,  while 
the  enmities  which  he  excited  hounded  him  relentlessly  to  the 
death.  Yet  in  the  struggle  he  had  the  sympathies  of  his  own 
Order  which  everywhere  throughout  Languedoc  manifested  itself 


had  given  it  to  his  queen,  through  whom  it  had  come  to  him.  The  royal  officials 
asserted  that  the  gift  had  only  been  for  life,  and  had  seized  it  again,  but  Philippe 
de  Valois  abandoned  it  to  the  claimant. — Vaissctte,  fid.  Privat,  X.  Pr.  831-3. 


76  LANGUEDOC. 

the  enemy  of  the  Dominican  Inquisition.  Already,  in  1291,  Fran- 
ciscans in  Carcassonne  had  endeavored  to  intervene  in  cases  of 
heresy,  and  had  been  sharply  reproved  by  Pliilippe  le  Bel  at  the 
instance  of  the  Inquisitor  Guillaume  de  Saint-Seine.  In  1298  they 
had  supported  the  appeal  of  the  men  of  Carcassonne  to  Boniface 
VIII.,  and  throughout  the  whole  of  Bernard's  agitation  the  Fran- 
ciscan convents  are  seen  to  be  rally ing-points  of  the  opposition. 
It  is  there  that  Bernard  preaches  his  fiery  sermons ;  it  is  there 
that  meetings  are  held  to  plan  resistance.  During  the  troubles 
in  Carcassonne  Foulques  de  Saint-Georges  went  with  twenty-five 
men  to  the  Franciscan  convent  to  cite  the  opponents  of  the  Inqui- 
sition. The  friars  would  not  admit  them,  but  tolled  the  bell  and 
an  angry  crowd  assembled,  while  those  inside  the  convent  assailed 
them  with  stones  and  quarrels,  and  they  were  glad  to  escape  with 
their  lives.* 

Vainly  the  inquisitors  complained  to  the  Franciscan  prelates 
of  Bernard  as  an  impeder  of  the  Holy  Office.  The  form  of  a  trial 
would  be  gone  through,  and  the  offender  would  be  furnished  with 
letters  attesting  his  innocence.  The  Dominicans  asserted  that 
Franciscan  zeal  was  solely  caused  by  jealousy ;  the  Franciscans  re- 
torted that  their  friends  were  the  special  objects  of  inquisitorial 
persecution.  King  Phihppe's  confessor  was  a  Dominican,  Queen 
Joanna's  a  Franciscan,  and  the  two  courtly  friars  took  part,  for 
and  against  the  Inquisition,  with  a  zeal  which  rendered  them  im- 
portant factors  in  the  struggle.  The  undying  hostility  between 
the  two  Orders  always  led  them  to  opposite  sides  in  every  ques- 
tion of  dogma  or  practice,  and  this  was  one  which  afforded  the 
amplest  scope  to  bitterness.f 

The  cotip-de-main  executed  on  the  so-called  heretics  of  Albi,  in 
December,  1299,  and  the  early  months  of  1300,  had  excited  con- 
sternation too  general  for  the  matter  to  be  passed  over.  King 
Philippe's  quarrel  with  Boniface  was  breaking  out  afresh,  and  he 
might  not  be  averse  to  making  his  subjects  feel  that  they  had  a 

*  Historia  Tribulationum  (Archiv  fur  Litteratur-  u.  Kircbengeschichte,  1886, 
p.  148).— MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4370,  fol.  231.— Vaissette,  fid.  Privat, 
X.  268. 

t  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  9,  19,  22,  24,  26,  32,  40,  63,  70, 
73,  81,  82,  84,  119,  128,  149,  155,  163.  —  Bern.  Guidon.  Hist.  Conv.  Albiens.  (D. 
Bouquet,  XXI.  748).— Coll.  Boat,  XXXIV.  26. 


THE    ROYAL    REFORMERS.  77 

protector  in  the  throne.  With  the  advice  of  his  council  an  inves- 
tigation was  ordered,  and  confided  to  the  Bishops  of  Beziers  and 
Maguelonne,  but  the  inquisitors  arrogantly  and  persistently  re- 
fused to  allow  the  secrets  of  their  office  to  be  invaded.  This  was 
not  calculated  to  remove  popular  disquiet,  and  in  1301  Philippe 
sent  to  Languedoc  two  officials  armed  with  supreme  powers,  un- 
der the  name  of  Reformers.  As  the  royal  authority  extended 
and  established  itself,  special  deputies  for  the  investigation  and 
correction  of  abuses  were  frequently  despatched  to  the  provinces. 
In  the  present  case  those  who  came  to  Languedoc  perhaps  had 
for  their  chief  business  the  arrest  of  the  Bishop  of  Pamiers,  ac- 
cused of  treasonable  practices,  but  the  colorable  pretext  for  their 
mission  was  the  correction  of  inquisitorial  abuses.  One  of  them, 
Jean  de  Pequigny,  Yidame  of  Amiens,  was  a  man  of  high  char- 
acter for  probity  and  sagacity ;  the  other  was  Richard  Nepveu, 
Archdeacon  of  Lisieux,  of  whom  we  hear  little  in  the  following 
years,  except  that  he  quietly  slipped  into  the  vacant  episcopate 
of  Beziers.  He  must  have  done  his  duty  to  some  extent,  how- 
ever, for  Bernard  Gui  tells  us  that  he  died  in  1309  of  leprosy,  as 
a  judgment  of  God  for  his  hostility  to  the  Inquisition.* 

The  Reformers  established  themselves  at  Toulouse,  where 
Foulques  de  Saint-Georges  had  been  inquisitor  since  Michaelmas, 
1300,  and  speedily  gathered  much  damaging  testimony  against 
him,  for  he  was  accused  not  only  of  unduly  torturing  persons  for 
purposes  of  extortion,  but  of  gratifying  his  lusts  by  arresting 
women  whose  virtue  he  failed  otherwise  to  overcome.  Thither 
flocked  representatives  of  Albi,  with  the  wives  and  children  of 
the  prisoners,  beseeching  and  imploring  the  representatives  of  the 


*  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4370,  fol.  163.  — Guillel.  Nangiac.  Contin. 
ann.  1303.  —  Grandes  Chroniques,  T.  V.  pp.  156-7.  —  Girard  de  Fraclieto  Chron. 
contin.  ann.  1203  (D.  Bouq.  XXI.  23).— Vaissette,  IV.  112.— Bern.  Guidon.  Hist. 
Fund.  Conv.  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  V.  514). 

When,  long  years  afterwards,  in  1319,  Bernard  Delicieux  was  carried  from 
Avignon  to  Toulouse  for  the  trial  which  led  to  his  death,  one  of  the  convoy,  a 
notary  named  Arnaud  de  Nogaret,  chanced  to  allude  to  a  report  that  Pecjuiguy 
had  been  bribed  with  one  thousand  livres  to  oppose  the  Inquisition.  Then  the 
old  man's  temper  flashed  forth  in  defence  of  his  departed  friend—"  Thou  liest 
in  the  throat :  the  Vidame  was  an  honest  man  !"— MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin, 
No.  4270,  fol.  263. 


78  LANGUEDOC. 

king  for  justice,  and  promising  revelations  if  they  would  issue  let- 
ters  of  safety  to  those  who  would  give  inforaiation — for  the  ter- 
ror inspired  by  the  Inquisition  was  such  that  no  one  dared  to 
testify  concerning  it  unless  he  was  assured  of  protection  against 
its  vengeance.  The  Bishop  of  Albi  came  also  to  justify  himself, 
and  on  his  return  to  his  episcopal  seat  he  was  welcomed  with 
a  manifestation  of  the  feeling  entertained  for  him  by  his  flock, 
whom  the  coming  of  the  Reformers  encouraged  in  the  expression 
of  their  sentiments.  When  his  approach  was  announced  a  crowd 
of  men  and  women  rushed  forth  from  the  gates  to  meet  him  with 
shouts  of  "  Death,  death,  death  to  the  traitor !"  It  may  perhaps 
be  doubted  whether,  as  reported,  he  bore  the  threats  and  insults 
with  patience  akin  to  that  of  Christ,  ordering  his  followers  to 
keep  their  weapons  down ;  certain  it  is  that  he  was  roughly  han- 
dled, and  had  difiiculty  in  safely  reaching  his  palace.  A  conspir- 
acy was  formed  to  burn  the  palace,  in  order,  during  the  confu- 
sion, to  liberate  the  prisoners,  but  the  hearts  of  the  conspirators 
failed  them  and  the  project  was  abandoned.  Even  more  mena- 
cing was  the  action  of  a  number  of  the  chief  citizens,  who  bound 
themselves  by  a  notarial  instrument  to  prosecute  him  and  Nicho- 
las d' Abbeville  in  the  king's  court.  As  a  consequence,  the  bish- 
op's temporalities  were  sequestrated,  and  eventually  the  enormous 
fine  of  twenty  thousand  livres  stripped  him  of  a  portion  of  his  iU- 
gotten  gains  for  the  benefit  of  the  king,  who  was  bitterly  re- 
proached by  Bernard  Delicieux  for  thus  preferring  money  to 
justice.  Bernard  de  Castanet  retained  his  uneasy  seat  until  1308, 
when,  seeing  under  Clement  Y.  no  prospect  of  better  times,  he  pro- 
cured a  transfer  to  the  quieter  see  of  Puy.  One  of  the  earliest 
signs  of  the  revulsion  under  John  XXII.  was  his  advancement,  in 
December,  1316,  to  the  Cardinalate  of  Porto,  which  he  held  for 
only  eight  months,  his  death  occurring  in  August,  1317.* 

The  Reformers,  meanwhile,  had  sent  for  Bernard  Delicieux, 
who  was  then  quietly  performing  his  duties  as  lector  in  the  con- 
vent of  Narbonne.     He  must  already  have  made  himself  conspic- 


*  Bern.  Guidon.  Hist.  Fund.  Conv.  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VI.  510-11).— Arch. 
de  I'lnq.  de  Care.  (Boat,  XXVII.  7).— MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4270.  fol. 
6,  7, 11,  42,  45,  48,  71, 161,  270.— Arch,  de  l'h6tel-de-ville  d'Albi  (Boat,  XXXIV. 
169).— Vaissette,  IV.  143. 


FOULQUES    DE    SAINT-GEORGES.  79 

uous  in  the  aifair  of  Cast  el  Fabri,  and  was  evidently  regarded  as 
a  desirable  ally  in  the  im})ending  struggle.  According  to  his  own 
story  he  advised  Pequigny  to  let  the  Inquisition  alone,  as  experi- 
ence had  shown  that  effort  was  useless ;  but  on  being  called  again 
to  Toulouse  on  some  business  connected  with  the  Priory  of  la 
Daurade,  and  having  to  visit  Paris  in  connection  with  the  will  of 
Louis,  Bishop  of  Toulouse,  it  was  arranged,  at  Pequigny's  sugges- 
tion, that  he  should  accompany  a  deputation  which  the  citizens  of 
Albi  were  sending  to  the  king  to  invoke  his  active  intervention. 
The  court  was  at  Senlis,  a\  hither  they  repaired,  and  there  came 
also  Pequigny  to  justify  himself,  and  Frere  Foulques  with  several 
Dominicans,  eager  to  establish  the  innocence  of  the  Inquisition.* 
The  battle  was  fought  out  before  the  king.  Bernard  urged 
the  suspension  of  the  inquisitors  during  an  investigation,  or  that 
the  Dominicans  should  be  permanently  declared  ineligible  while 
awaiting  final  action  by  the  Holy  See.  Supported  by  Frere  Guil- 
laume,  the  king's  Dominican  confessor,  Foulques  preferred  charges 
against  Pequigny,  but  could  furnish  no  proofs.  Pequigny  retort- 
ed with  accusations  against  Foulques,  and  a  commission,  consist- 
ing of  the  Archbishop  of  ISTarbonne  and  the  Constable  of  France, 
was  appointed  to  hear  both  sides.  After  due  deliberation,  it  re- 
ported in  favor  of  Pequigny,  and  the  king  took  the  unheard-of 
step  of  removing  the  inquisitor.  He  at  first  requested  this  of  the 
Dominican  Provincial  of  Paris,  who  possessed  the  power  to  do  so, 
but  that  official  called  together  a  chapter,  which  contented  itself 
with  appointing  an  adjunct,  and  ordering  Foulques  to  retain  office 
tiU  the  middle  of  the  following  Lent,  in  order  to  complete  the  tri- 
als which  he  had  already  commenced.  This  gave  Philippe  great 
offence,  which  he  expressed  in  the  most  outspoken  terms  in  letters 
to  his  chaplain  and  to  the  Bishop  of  Toulouse,  whom  he  bitterly 
reproached  for  advising  acceptance  of  the  terms.  He  did  not 
content  himself  with  words,  for  simultaneously,  December  8, 
1301,  he  wrote  to  the  bishop,  the  Inquisitor  of  Toulouse,  and  the 
seneschals  of  Toulouse  and  Albi,  stating  that  the  imploring  cries 
of  his  subjects,  including  prelates  and  ecclesiastics,  counts,  bar- 
ons, and  other  distiuguished  men,  convinced  him  that  Foulques 
was  guilty  of  the  charges  preferred  against  him,  including  crimes 


•  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  16,  149. 


80  LANGUEDOC. 

abhorrent  to  the  human  mind.  He  afflicted  the  people  with  nu- 
merous exactions  and  oppressions ;  he  was  accustomed  to  com- 
mence proceedings  with  torture  inconceivable  and  incredible,  and 
thus  compel  confession  from  those  whom  he  suspected,  and  when 
this  failed  he  suborned  witnesses  to  testify  falsely.  His  detesta- 
ble excesses  had  created  such  general  terror  that  a  rising  of  the 
people  was  to  be  apprehended  unless  some  speedy  remedy  was 
had.  Some  further  unavailing  opposition  was  made  to  Foulques's 
removal,  but  not  much  was  gained  by  the  appointment  of  his  suc- 
cessor, Guillaume  de  Morieres,  who  had  previously  succeeded  him 
in  the  Priory  of  Albi.  Foulques  was  gratified  with  the  important 
Priory  of  Avignon,  and  when  he  subsequently  died  in  poverty 
at  Lyons  he  was  regarded  by  his  Order  almost  in  the  light  of  a 
martyr.* 

Philippe  had  not  contented  himself  with  getting  rid  of 
Foulques,  but  had  endeavored  to  introduce  reforms  which  are 
interesting  not  only  as  a  manifestation  of  the  royal  supremacy 
which  he  assumed,  but  also  as  the  model  of  all  subsequent  en- 
deavors to  curb  the  abuses  of  the  Inquisition.  It  was  natural 
that  this  should  take  the  shape  of  reviving  the  episcopal  power 
which  had  become  so  completely  suppressed.  Firstly,  the  prison 
which  the  crown  had  built  on  its  own  land  in  Toulouse  for  the 
use  of  the  Inquisition  was  to  be  placed  under  the  charge  of  some 
one  selected  by  both  bishop  and  inquisitor,  and  in  case  of  their 
disagreement  by  the  royal  seneschal.  The  inquisitor  was  deprived 
of  the  power  of  arbitrary  arrest.  He  was  obliged  to  consult  the 
bishop,  and  when  they  could  not  agree  the  question  was  to  be 
decided  by  a  majority  vote  in  an  assemblage  consisting  of  certain 
officials  of  the  cathedral  and  of  the  Franciscan  and  Dominican 
convents.  Arrests  were  only  to  be  made  by  the  seneschal,  after 
these  preliminaries  had  been  observed,  except  in  case  of  foreign 
heretics  who  might  escape.  The  question  of  bail  was  to  be  set- 
tled in  the  same  way  as  that  of  arrest.  In  no  case  was  either 
bishop  or  inquisitor  entitled  to  obedience  when  acting  individual- 
ly, for,  as  the  king  declared,  "  We  cannot  endure  that  the  life  and 


•  MSB.  Bib.  Nat,  fonds  latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  121, 125, 132, 150, 159, 165.— Vais- 
sette,  IV.  Pr.  118-20.— Bern.  Guidon.  Hist.  Conv.  Prsedic.  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll. 
VI.  510).— Arch,  dc  I'hotel-de-viUe  d'Albi  (Doat,  XXXIV.  169). 


INEFFECTIVE    REFORMS.  81 

death  of  our  subjects  shall  be  abandoned  to  the  discretion  of  a 
single  individual,  who,  even  if  not  actuated  by  cupidity,  may  be 
insufficiently  informed."  Inadequate  as  these  reforms  eventually 
proved,  they  had  an  excellent  temporary  effect.  For  a  time  the 
Inquisition  was  paralyzed,  and  arrests  which  had  been  taking 
place  every  week  were  suddenly  brought  to  an  end,  for  during 
1302  these  provisions  were  embodied  in  a  general  Ordonnance,  and 
the  legislation  of  1293  protecting  the  Jews  was  repeated.  At 
the  same  time  Philippe  was  careful  to  manifest  due  solicitude  for 
the  suppression  of  heresy,  for  he  published  anew  the  severe  edict 
of  St.  Louis ;  and  on  the  appointment  of  GuiUaume  de  Morieres  to 
the  Inquisition  of  Toulouse  he  wrote  to  the  seneschal  instruct- 
ing him  to  place  the  royal  prisons  at  the  inquisitor's  disposal,  to 
pay  him  the  customary  stipend,  and  to  aid  him  in  every  way  un- 
til further  orders.* 

While  the  new  regulations  may  have  promised  relief  elsewhere, 
they  gave  little  comfort  at  Albi,  the  inquisitorial  proceedings  of 
whose  bishop  had  given  rise  to  the  whole  disturbance.  Its  citi- 
zens were  still  languishing  in  the  prison  of  the  Inquisition  of  Car- 
cassonne, and  a  numerous  deputation  of  both  sexes  was  sent  to 
the  king,  accompanied  by  two  Franciscans,  Jean  Hector  and  Ber- 
trand  de  Yilledelle.  Again  Bernard  Dehcieux  was  present,  hav- 
ing this  time  been  opportunely  chosen  to  represent  the  Order  on 
a  summons  from  Philippe  for  consultation  on  the  subject  of  his 
quarrel  with  Pope  Boniface.  They  aU  followed  the  king  to  Pierre- 
fonds  and  then  to  Compiegne.  He  gave  them  fair  words,  prom- 
ised a  speedy  visit  to  Languedoc,  when  he  would  settle  matters, 
and  consoled  them  with  a  donation  of  one  thousand  Kvres,  which 
he  could  well  afford  to  do,  for  the  confiscated  estates  of  the  pris- 
oners were  in  his  hands,  and  were  never  released.f 

All  this,  of  course,  gave  little  satisfaction ;  nor  were  the  peo- 
ple placated  by  the  removal  of  Nicholas  d'AbbeviUe,  for  he  was 
succeeded  in  the  Inquisition  of  Carcassonne  by  Geoffroi  d'Ablis, 


'  Vaissette,  IV.  Pr.  118-21.— MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  69.— 
Isambert,  Anc.  Loix  Fran9.  II.  747,  789. 

t  Arch,  de  rii6tel-de-ville  d'Albi  (Doat,  XXXIV.  169).— MSS.  Bib.  Nat., 
fonds  latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  16,  70,  134,  151.  — Coll.  Doat,  XXXUI.  2«7-72; 
XXXIV.  189. 
II.— 6 


g2  LANGUEDOC. 

who  was  as  energetic  and  unsparing  as  his  predecessor,  and  who 
brought  royal  letters,  dated  January  1,  1303,  ordering  all  officials 
to  render  him  the  customary  obedience.  Popular  excitement 
grew  more  and  more  threatening,  and  as  Albi  had  no  local  inquis- 
itors of  its  own,  being  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  tribunal  of 
Carcassonne,  the  discontent  vented  itself  on  the  Dominicans,  who 
were  regarded  as  the  representatives  of  the  hated  tribunal.  On 
the  first  Sunday  in  Advent,  December  2, 1302,  when  the  friars 
went  as  usual  to  preach  in  the  churches  they  were  violently  eject- 
ed and  assailed  with  cries  of  "  Death  to  the  traitors !"  and  deemed 
themselves  at  length  fortunate  in  being  able  to  regain  their  con- 
vent. This  state  of  things  continued  for  several  years,  during 
which  they  scarce  dared  to  show  themselves  in  the  streets,  and 
were  never  secure  from  insult.  All  ahns  and  burial -fees  were 
withdrawn,  and  the  people  refused  even  to  attend  mass  in  their 
church.  The  names  of  Dominic  and  Peter  Martyr  were  erased 
from  the  crucifix  at  the  principal  gate  of  the  town,  and  were  re- 
placed with  those  of  Pequigny  and  Nepveu,  and  of  tAvo  citizens 
who  were  leaders  in  the  disturbances — Arnaud  Garsia  and  Pierre 
Probi  of  Castres.* 

The  prisoners  of  Albi  were  still  as  far  as  ever  from  liberation, 
and  Bernard  Delicieux  urged  Pequigny  to  come  to  Carcassonne 
and  consider  their  case  on  the  spot.  In  the  summer  of  1303  he 
did  so,  and  was  met  by  a  large  number  of  the  people  of  Albi,  men 
and  women,  praying  him  to  liberate  them.  While  he  was  inves- 
tigating the  subject  he  came  upon  the  instrument  of  pacification 
between  ISTicholas  d' Abbeville  and  the  consuls  of  Carcassonne  in 
1299.  This  was  communicated  to  the  people  by  Frere  Bernard  in 
a  fiery  sermon,  and  a  knowledge  of  its  conditions  aroused  them 
almost  to  frenzy.  Eiots  ensued  in  which  the  houses  of  some  of 
the  old  consuls  and  of  those  who  were  regarded  as  friends  of  the 
Inquisition  were  destroyed;  the  Dominican  church  was  assailed, 
its  windows  broken,  the  statues  in  its  porch  overthrown,  and  the 
friars  maltreated.  To  violate  the  prisons  of  the  Inquisition  was  so 
serious  a  matter  that  Pequigny  seems  to  have  wished  the  backing 
of  an  enraged  populace  before  he  would  venture  on  the  step:  and 

*  Vaissette,  Ed.  Privat,  X.  Pr.  409.  —  ]\ISS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latiu,  No.  4270, 
fol.  165.— Bern.  Guidon.  Hist.  Conv.  Prtedic.  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VI.  511). 


CONFLICT    BETWEEN    CHURCH    AND    STATE.        83 

when  he  resolved  upon  it  he  anticipated  resistance  so  confidently 
that  with  his  privity  Bernard  assembled  fourscore  men,  with 
skilled  mechanics,  in  the  Franciscan  convent,  ready  to  break  open 
the  jails  in  case  of  necessity.  Their  services  were  not  needed. 
Geoffroi  d'Ablis  yielded,  and  in  August,  1303,  Pequigny  removed 
the  prisoners  of  Albi.  He  did  not  discharge  them,  however,  but 
merely  transferred  them  to  the  royal  prisons,  and  refused  to  carry 
them  to  the  king  as  Bernard  advised.  Possibly  their  treatment 
for  a  while  may  have  been  gentler,  but  they  derived  no  perma- 
nent advantage  from  the  movement.  The  grasp  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion was  unrelaxing.  It  obtained  possession  of  them  again,  and 
we  shall  see  that  it  held  them  to  the  last.^' 

Meanwhile  advantage  was  taken  of  the  access  obtained  to 
them  to  procure  from  tliem  statements  of  the  tortures  which  they 
had  endured,  and  lists  were  made  of  the  names  of  those  whom 
they  had  been  forced  to  accuse  as  heretics.  These  were  circulated 
throughout  the  land  and  excited  general  alarm,  the  Franciscans 
being  especially  active  in  giving  them  publicity.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  inquisitor  Geoffroi  d'Ablis  was  equal  to  the  emergency. 
He  cited  Pequigny  to  appear  and  stand  trial  for  impeding  the  In- 
quisition, and  on  his  refusal  excommunicated  him,  September  29 ; 
and  as  soon  as  word  could  be  carried  to  Paris  he  was  published 
as  excommunicate  by  the  Dominicans  there.  This  audacious  act 
brought  all  parties  to  a  sense  of  the  nature  of  the  conflict  which 
had  sprung  up  between  Church  and  State.  The  consuls  and  people 
of  Albi  addressed  to  the  queen  an  earnest  petition  beseeching  her 
to  prevail  upon  the  king  not  to  abandon  them  by  withdrawing 
the  Keformers,  who  had  already  done  so  much  good  and  on  whom 
depended  their  last  hope.  A  fruitless  effort  also  was  made  to  pre- 
vent the  publication  of  the  excommunication.  At  Castres,  Oc- 
tober 13,  Jean  Ricoles,  stipendiary  priest  of  the  Church  of  St. 
Mary,  published  it  from  the  pulpit,  as  he  was  bound  to  do,  and 
was  promptly  arrested  by  the  deputy  of  the  royal  viguier  of  Albi 
and  carried  to  the  Franciscan  convent,  where  he  was  threatened 


*  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  4370,  fol.  8,  17,  19,  20,  32,  44,  49,  58,  156,  103, 
229. — Pequigny  is  also  said  to  have  arrested  some  of  the  friars  connected  with 
the  Inquisition  (La  Faille,  Annales  de  Toulouse  I.  34),  but  I  think  this  impos- 
sible. 


84  LANGUEDOC. 

and  maltreated,  and  the  friars  used  every  effort  to  persuade  him 
to  withdraw  it.  This  in  itself  was  a  grave  violation  of  clerical 
immunity,  and  it  was  soon  recognized  that  such  proceedings  were 
worse  than  useless.  Pequigny's  authority  was  paralyzed  until  the 
excommunication  should  be  removed,  and  this  could  only  be  done 
by  the  man  Avho  had  uttered  it,  or  l)y  the  pope  himself.* 

The  prospect  of  relief  was  darkened  by  the  election,  October 
21,  of  Benedict  XI.,  himself  a  Dominican  and  necessarily  pre- 
disposed in  favor  of  the  Inquisition.  Special  exertions  evidently 
were  required  unless  all  that  had  been  gained  was  to  be  lost,  and, 
at  the  best,  litigation  in  the  Roman  court  was  a  costly  business. 
Pequigny  had  appealed  to  the  pope,  and,  October  29,  he  wrote 
from  Paris  to  the  cities  of  Languedoc  asking  for  their  aid  in  the 
persecution  which  he  had  brought  upon  himself  in  their  cause. 
Bernard  Delicieux  promptly  busied  himself  to  obtain  the  required 
assistance.  By  his  exertions  the  three  cities  of  Carcassonne,  Albi, 
and  Cordes  entered  into  an  alliance  and  pledged  themselves  to  fur- 
nish the  sum  of  three  thousand  livres,  one  half  by  Carcassonne 
and  the  rest  by  the  other  two,  and  to  continue  in  the  same  pro- 
portions as  long  as  the  affair  should  last.  After  Pequigny's  death 
they  renewed  their  obhgation  to  his  oldest  son  Renaud ;  but  as  the 
matter  was  much  protracted,  they  grew  tired,  and  Bernard,  who 
had  raised  some  of  the  money  on  his  own  responsibility,  was  left 
with  heavy  obligations,  of  which  he  vainly  sought  restitution  at 
the  hands  of  the  ungrateful  cities.f 

The  quarrel  was  thus  for  a  time  transferred  to  Rome.  Pe- 
quigny went  to  Italy  with  envoys  from  the  king  and  from  Carcas- 
sonne and  Albi  to  plead  his  cause,  and  was  opposed  by  Guillaume 
de  Morieres,  the  Inquisitor  of  Toulouse,  sent  thither  to  manage 
the  case  against  him.     Benedict  was  not  slow  in  showing  on 


*  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  4270,  fol.  27,  272.— Arch,  de  I'lnq.  de  Care. 
(Doat,  XXXII.  114).— Bern.  Guidon.  Hist.  Conv.  Praedic.  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll. 
VI.  511).— Vaissette,  IV.  Pr.  128.— Coll.  Doat,  XXXIV.  26. 

The  Dominican  party  declared  that  the  statements  purporting  to  come  from 
the  prisoners  were  fraudulent,  and  Bernard  Gui  relates  with  savage  satisfaction 
that  a  monk  named  Raymond  Baudicr,  who  was  concerned  in  getting  them  up, 
hanged  himself  like  Judas  (1.  c.  p.  514). 

t  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  4270,  fol.  63,  153-55, 272-3.— Haurgau,  Bern.  Dg- 
licieux  pp.  187, 190. 


REHABILITATION    OF    PEQUIGNY.  85 

"which  side  his  sympathies  lay.  At  Perugia,  while  the  pope  was 
conducting  the  solemnities  of  Pentecost,  May  17,  1304,  Pequigny 
ventured  to  enter  the  church.  Benedict  saw  him,  and,  pointing  to 
him,  said  to  his  marshal,  P.  de  Brayda,  "  Turn  out  that  Patarin !" 
an  order  which  the  marshal  zealously  obeyed.  The  significance 
of  the  incident  was  not  small,  and  after  the  death  of  both  Bene- 
dict and  Pequigny,  Geoffroi  d'Ablis  caused  a  notarial  instrument 
recounting  it  to  be  drawn  up  and  duly  authenticated  as  one  of 
the  documents  of  the  process.  The  climate  of  Italy  was  very  un- 
healthy for  Transmontanes.  Morieres  died  at  Perugia,  and  Pe- 
quigny followed  him  at  Abruzzo,  September  29,  1304,  the  anni- 
versary of  his  excommunication.  Having  remained  for  a  year 
under  the  ban  for  impeding  the  Inquisition,  he  was  legally  a 
heretic,  and  his  burial  in  consecrated  ground  is  only  to  be  ex- 
plained by  the  death  of  Benedict  a  short  time  before.  Geoffroi 
d'Ablis  demanded  that  his  bones  be  exhumed  and  burned,while  Pe- 
quigny's  sons  carried  on  the  appeal  for  the  rehabilitation  of  his 
memory.  The  matter  dragged  on  till  Clement  V.  referred  it  to  a 
commission  of  three  cardinals.  These  gave  a  patient  hearing  to 
both  sides,  who  argued  the  matter  exhaustively,  and  submitted 
all  the  necessary  documents  and  papers.  At  last,  July  23,  1308, 
they  rendered  their  decision  to  the  effect  that  the  sentence  of 
excommunication  had  been  unjust  and  iniquitous,  and  that  its 
revocation  should  be  published  in  all  places  where  it  had  been 
announced.  Geoffroi  fruitlessly  endeavored  to  appeal  from  this, 
which  was  the  most  complete  justification  possible  of  all  that  had 
been  said  and  done  against  the  Inquisition,  emphasized  by  Clem- 
ent's cutting  refusal  to  listen  to  his  statements  —  "  It  is  false : 
the  land  never  wished  to  rebel,  but  was  in  evil  case  in  consequence 
of  the  doings  of  the  Inquisition,"  while  a  cardinal  told  him  that 
for  fift}^  years  the  people  had  been  goaded  to  resistance  by  the 
excesses  of  his  predecessors,  and  that  when  a  corrective  was  ap- 
plied they  only  added  evil  to  evil.* 

Benedict  XL  had  given  other  proofs  of  partisanship.     It  is 
true  that  in  answer  to  the  complaints  of  the  oppressed  ])eop]e  he 


*  Arch,  de  llnq.  de  Care.  (Doat,  XXXI.  10;  XXXII.  114).  — Bern.  Guidon. 
Hist.  Conv.  Praedic.  (Martcue  Auipl.  Coll.  VI.  510-11).  —  MSS.  Bib.  Nat,  fonds 
latin,  4270,  fol.  88,  109,  122. 


86  LANGUEDOC. 

appointed  a  commission  of  cardinals  to  investigate  the  matter,  but 
there  is  no  trace  of  their  labors,  which  were  probably  cut  short 
by  his  death,  July  7,  1304.  No  commissioners  of  his  selection 
Avould  have  been  likely  to  report  adversely  to  the  Inquisition,  for 
he  manifested  his  prejudgment  by  ordering  the  Minister  of  Aqui- 
taine,  under  pain  of  forfeiture  of  office  and  future  disability,  to 
arrest  Frere  Bernard  without  warning  and  send  him  under  suffi- 
cient guard  to  the  papal  court,  as  a  fautor  of  heretics  and  presum- 
ably a  heretic.  The  leading  citizens  of  Albi,  including  G.  de 
Pesenches  the  viguier  and  Gaillard  Etienne  the  royal  judge,  who 
had  sought  to  aid  Pequigny,  were  also  involved  in  the  papal  con- 
demnation. The  Minister  of  Aquitaine  intrusted  to  Frere  Jean 
Kigaud  the  execution  of  the  arrest,  which  he  duly  performed,  June, 
1304,  in  the  convent  of  Carcassonne,  adding  an  excommunication 
when  Bernard,  encouraged  by  the  active  sympathy  of  the  people, 
delayed  in  obeying  the  papal  summons.  He  never  went,  and  it 
is  a  curious  illustration  of  Franciscan  tendencies  to  see  that  the 
minister  absolved  him  from  the  excommunication,  and  that  the 
provincial  chapter  of  his  Order  at  Albi  decided  that  he  had  done 
all  that  was  requisite,  though  perhaps  Benedict's  death  in  July 
had  relieved  them  from  fears  as  to  the  immediate  consequences  of 
their  contumacy.* 

Meanwhile  Philippe  le  Bel  had  at  last  fulfilled  his  promise 
to  visit  in  person  his  southern  provinces  and  rectify  on  the  spot 
the  wrongs  of  which  his  subjects  had  so  long  complained.  He 
was  expecting  a  favorable  termination  to  his  negotiation  with 
Benedict  for  the  removal  of  the  excommunications  launched  by 
Boniface  YIII.  against  himself  and  his  subjects  and  chief  agents, 
a  result  which  he  obtained  May  13,  1304,  with  exception  of  the 
censure  inflicted  on  Guillaume  de  Nogaret  and  Sciarra  Colonna. 
When,  therefore,  he  reached  Toulouse  on  Christmas  Day,  1303,  he 
was  not  disposed  to  excite  unnecessarily  Benedict's  prejudices. 
From  Albi  and  Carcassonne  multitudes  flocked  to  him  with  cries 
for  redress  and  protection,  and  Pequigny  spoke  eloquently  in  their 
behalf.     The  inquisitors  were  represented  by  GuiUem  Pierre,  the 


*  Arch,  de  lliotel-de-ville  d'Albi  (Doat,  XXXIV.  45).— Arch,  de  Tlnq.  de 
Care.  (Doat,  XXXIV.  14).— MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  4270,  fol.  23,  25,  31,  86, 
132,  137,  140-1,  152,  153. 


PHILIPPE'S    COMPROMISE.  87 

Dominican  provincial,  while  Bernard  Delicieux  was  foremost  in 
the  debate.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  he  made  his  celebrated 
assertion  that  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  would  be  convicted  of  heresy 
if  tried  with  inquisitorial  methods,  and  when  the  scandalized 
Bishop  of  Auxerre  tartly  reproved  him,  he  stoutly  maintained  the 
truth  of  what  he  had  said.  Friar  Nicholas,  the  king's  Dominican 
confessor,  was  suspected  of  exercising  undue  influence  in  favor  of 
the  Inquisition,  and  Bernard  endeavored  to  discredit  him  by  ac- 
cusing him  of  betraying  to  the  Flemings  all  the  secrets  of  the 
royal  council.  Geoifroi  d'Ablis,  the  Inquisitor  of  Carcassonne, 
moreover,  was  ingratiating  himself  with  Philippe  at  the  moment 
by  skilful  negotiations  to  bring  about  a  reconciliation  with  Rome.* 

Philippe  patiently  heard  both  sides,  and  recorded  his  conclu- 
sions in  an  edict  of  January  13,  1304,  which  was  in  the  nature  of 
a  compromise.  It  recited  that  the  king  had  come  to  Languedoc 
for  the  purpose  of  pacifying  the  country  excited  by  the  action  of 
the  Inquisition,  and  had  had  prolonged  consultation  on  the  subject 
with  all  who  were  entitled  to  express  an  opinion.  The  result  thus 
reached  was  that  the  prisoners  of  the  Inquisition  should  be  visited 
by  royal  deputies  in  company  with  inquisitors ;  the  prisons  were 
to  be  safe,  but  not  punitive.  In  the  case  of  prisoners  not  yet  sen- 
tenced the  trials  were  to  be  carried  to  conclusion  under  the  con- 
joined supervision  of  the  bishops  and  inquisitors,  and  this  co-opera- 
tion was  to  be  observed  in  the  future,  except  at  Albi,  where  the 
bishop,  being  suspected,  was  to  be  replaced  by  Arnaud  ISToveUi,  the 
Cistercian  Abbot  of  Fontfroide.  The  royal  oiScials  were  strictly 
ordered  to  aid  in  every  way  the  inquisitors  and  episcopal  ordinaries 
when  called  upon,  and  to  protect  from  injury  and  violence  the 
Dominicans,  their  churches  and  houses.f 

At  Albi  the  change  had  the  wished-for  effect.  No  more  here- 
tics were  found  and  no  further  prosecutions  were  required.  Yet 
the  refusal  of  the  king  to  entertain  any  project  of  refonn  other 
than  his  previous  one  of  curbing  the  Inquisition  with  an  illusory 


•  Grandjean,  Registres  de  Bcnoit  XI.  No.  1253-60,  127G.— MSS.  Bib.  Nat., 
fnuds  latin,  4270,  fol.  21,  73,  74,  158,  163,  278.— Molinier,  Llnq.  daus  le  midi  de 
la  France  pp.  126-7.— Gcoffroi  d'Ablis  had  sufficient  influence  with  the  king  t« 
persuade  him  to  found  the  Dominican  convent  of  Poissy. 

t  Vaissette,  IV.  Pr.  130-1.— MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  4270,  fol.  139. 


88  LANGUEDOC. 

episcopal  supervision  was  a  grievous  disappointment.     Men  nat- 
urally argued  that  if  the  Dominicans  had  done  right  they  ought 
not  to  be  insulted  by  the  proposed  episcopal  co-operation ;  and  if 
they  had  done  wrong  they  ought  to  be  replaced.     If  any  change 
was  called  for,  the  projected  one  was  insufficient.    So  many  hopes 
had  been  built  upon  the  royal  presence  in  the  land,  that  the  result 
caused  universal  dismay,  which  was  not  relieved  by  Philippe's  sub- 
sequent action.    When  he  visited  Carcassonne  he  was  urged  to  see 
the  unfortunate  captives  whose  persecution  had  been  the  promi- 
nent cause  of  the  troubles,  but  he  refused,  and  sent  his  brother  Louis 
to  look  at  them.    Worse  than  all,  the  citizens  had  designed  to  pro- 
pitiate him  and  demonstrate  their  loyalty  by  offering  him  some 
elaborate  silver  vessels.    These  were  yet  in  the  hands  of  the  gold- 
smiths of  Montpellier  when  the  royal  party  came  to  Carcassonne, 
so  they  were  sent  after  him  to  Beziers,  where  the  presentation  was 
made,  a  portion  to  him  and  the  rest  to  the  queen.     She  accepted 
the  offering,  but  he  not  only  rejected  it,  but,  when  he  learned  what 
the  queen  had  done,  forced  her  to  return  the  present.    This  threw 
the  consuls  of  Carcassonne  into  despair.     Offerings  of  this  kind 
from  municipalities  to  the  sovereign  were  so  customary  and  their 
gracious  acceptance  so  much  a  matter  of  course,  that  refusal  in  this 
instance  seemed  to  argue  some  most  unfavorable  intentions  on  the 
part  of  the  king,  which  was  not  unlikely,  seeing  that  Ehas  Patrice, 
the  leading  citizen  of  Carcassonne,  had  plainly  told  him  when  there 
that  if  he  did  not  render  them  speedy  justice  against  the  Inquisi- 
tion they  would  be  forced  to  seek  another  lord,  and  when  Philippe 
ordered  him  from  his  presence  the  citizens  obeyed  Patrice's  com- 
mand to  remove  the  decorations  from  the  streets.    Imagining  that 
he  had  been  won  over  by  the  Dominicans  and  that  his  protection 
would  be  withdrawn,  the  prospect  of  being  abandoned  to  the 
mercy  of  the  Inquisition  seemed  so  terrible  that  they  wildly  de- 
clared that  if  they  could  not  find  another  lord  to  protect  them 
they  would  burn  the  town  and  with  the  inhabitants  seek  some 
place  of  refuge.     In  consultation  with  Frere  Bernard  it  was  has- 
tily determined  to  offer  their  allegiance  to  Ferrand,  son  of  the 
King  of  Majorca. 

The  younger  branch  of  the  House  of  Aragon,  which  drew  its 
title  from  the  Balearic  Isles,  held  the  remnants  of  the  old  French 
possessions  of  the  Catalans,  including  Montpellier  and  Perpignan. 


THE    TREASON    OF    CARCASSONNE.  89 

It  had  old  claims  to  much  of  the  land,  and  its  rule  might  well  be 
hailed  by  the  people  as  much  more  welcome  than  the  foreign 
domination  to  which  they  had  been  unwiUingly  subjected.  Had 
the  whole  region  agreed  to  transfer  its  allegiance,  its  reduction 
might  have  cost  Philippe  a  doubtful  struggle,  embarrassed  as  he 
was  with  the  chronic  disaffection  of  the  Flemings.  When,  how- 
ever, the  project  was  broached  to  the  men  of  Albi,  they  refused 
peremptorily  to  embark  in  it,  and  there  can  be  no  stronger  proof 
of  the  desperation  of  the  Carcassais  than  their  resolution  to  per- 
sist in  it  single-handed,  Ferrand  and  his  father  were  at  Mont- 
pellier  entertaining  the  French  court,  which  they  accompanied  to 
IMimes.  He  eagerly  listened  to  the  overtures,  and  asked  Frere 
Bernard  to  come  to  him  at  Perpignan.  Bernard  went  thither 
with  a  letter  of  credence  from  the  consuls,  which  he  prudently 
destroyed  on  the  road.  The  King  of  Majorca,  when  he  heard  of 
the  offer,  chastened  his  son's  ambition  by  boxing  his  ears  and  pull- 
ing him.  around  by  the  hair,  and  he  ingratiated  himself  with  his 
powerful  neighbor  by  communicating  the  plot  to  Philippe.* 

Although  there  could  have  been  no  real  danger  from  so  crazy 
a  project,  the  relation  of  the  southern  provinces  to  the  crown  were 
too  strained  for  the  king  not  to  exact  a  vengeance  which  should 
prove  a  warning.  A  court  was  assembled  at  Carcassonne  which 
sat  through  the  summer  of  1305  and  made  free  use  of  torture  in 
its  investigations.  Albi,  which  had  taken  no  part  in  the  plot, 
escaped  an  investigation  by  a  bribe  of  one  thousand  livres  to  the 
seneschal,  Jean  d'Alnet,  but  the  damage  inflicted  on  the  Francis- 
can convent  shows  that  the  Dominicans  were  keen  to  make  re- 
prisals for  what  they  had  suffered.  The  town  of  Limoux  had 
been  concerned  in  the  affair ;  it  was  fined  and  disfranchised,  and 


*  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  foods  latin,  4370,  fol.  26,  74-8,  88-9,  98,  103-8,  198,  200-3, 
226,  233,  265,  279.— Mascaro,  Memorias  de  Bezes,  aim.  1336,  1389. 

For  the  tenure  of  Montpellier  by  the  Kings  of  Majorca,  see  Vaissette,  IV.  38, 
42,  77-8,  151,  235-6.  It  was  not  until  1349  that  Philippe  de  Valois  bought  out 
the  rights  of  Jayme  II.,  and  in  1352  bis  son  Jean  was  obliged  to  extinguish  the 
claims  still  asserted  by  Pedro  IV.  of  Aragon  (lb.  247,  268,  Pr.  219). 

Bernard's  attention  was  probably  drawn  to  the  House  of  Majorca  by  its  strong 
adliesion  to  the  Franciscan  Order.  Ferrand's  older  brother  died  in  1304,  in  the 
Franciscan  habit,  under  tlie  name  of  Fray  Jayme.  Another  brother,  Felipe,  be- 
came a  "  Spiritual  Franciscan,"  as  we  shall  see  hereafter. 


90  L  A  N  G  U  E  D  O  C. 

forty  of  its  citizens  were  hanged.  As  for  Carcassonne,  all  of  its 
eight  consuls,  with  Elias  I'atrice  at  their  head,  and  seven  other 
citizens  were  hanged  in  tlieir  official  robes,  the  city  was  deprived 
of  self-government  and  subjected  to  the  enormous  fine  of  sixty 
thousand  livres,  a  sentence  from  which  it  vainly  appealed  to  the 
Parlement.  As  Bernartl  Gui  observes  with  savage  exultation, 
those  who  had  croaked  like  ravens  against  the  Dominicans  were 
exposed  to  the  ravens.  Aimeric  Castel,  who  had  sought  in  this 
way  to  obtain  redress  for  the  wrong  done  to  his  father's  memory 
and  estate,  escaped  by  flight,  but  was  captured  and  long  lay  a 
prisoner,  finally  making  his  peace  with  a  heavy  ransom,  and  a 
harvest  of  fines  was  gathered  into  the  royal  exchequer  from  all 
who  could  be  accused  of  privity.  As  for  Frere  Bernard,  he  re- 
ceived early  intelligence  from  Frere  Durand,  the  queen's  confessor, 
of  the  discovery  of  the  plot,  when  he  boldly  headed  a  delegation 
of  citizens  of  Albi  who  went  to  Paris  to  protest  theu'  innocence. 
There  Durand  informed  them  that  Albi  was  not  implicated,  when 
they  returned,  leaving  Bernard.  At  the  request  of  the  king,  Clem- 
ent Y.  had  him  arrested  and  carried  to  Lyons,  whence  he  was 
taken  by  the  papal  court  to  Bordeaux ;  and  when  it  went  to  Poi- 
tiers he  was  confined  in  the  convent  of  St.  Junian  of  Limoges. 
In  May,  1307,  at  the  instance  of  Clement,  Philippe  issued  letters 
of  amnesty  to  all  concerned,  and  remitted  to  Carcassonne  the  por- 
tion of  its  fine  not  yet  paid,  and  in  Lent,  1308,  Bernard  was  al- 
lowed to  come  to  Poitiers.  On  the  king's  arrival  there  he  boldly 
complained  to  him  of  his  arrest  and  of  the  punishment  which  had 
involved  the  innocent  with  the  guilty.  As  he  still  had  no  license 
to  leave  the  papal  court,  he  accompanied  it  to  Avignon,  and  was  at 
length  discharged  with  the  royal  assent — the  heavy  bribes  paid  to 
three  cardinals  by  his  friends  of  Albi  having  perhaps  something 
to  do  with  his  immunity.  He  returned  to  Toulouse,  and  we  hear 
of  no  further  activity  on  his  part.  His  narrow  escape  probably 
sobered  his  restless  enthusiasm,  and  as  the  reform  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion seemed  to  have  been  taken  resolutely  in  hand  by  Clement  Y. 
he  might  well  persuade  himself  that  there  was  no  further  caU  for 
self-sacrifice.*  

»  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  4270,  fol.  78-80,  90-1, 196,  247,  252-3,  257-9.— 
Bern.  Guidon.  Hist.  Conv.  Pioedic.  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VI.  479-80).— Vaissette, 
IV.  129-30.— Vaissette,  fed.  Privat,  X.  Pr.  4G1.— Bernard  Gui's   allusion  refers 


ELECTION    OF    CLEMENT   V.  91 

The  death  of  Benedict  XI.,  in  July,  1304,  had  given  fresh 
hopes  to  the  sufferers  from  the  Inquisition.  There  was  an  inter- 
regnum  of  nearly  a  year  before  the  election  of  his  successor, 
Clement  V.,  June  5,  1305.  During  this  period  a  petition  to  the 
CoUege  of  Cardinals  was  presented  by  seventeen  of  the  religious 
bodies  of  the  Albigeois,  including  the  canons  of  the  cathedral  of 
Albi,  those  of  the  church  of  St.  Salvi,  the  convent  of  Gaillac,  etc., 
imploring  in  the  most  pressing  terms  the  Sacred  College  to  inter- 
vene and  avert  the  fearful  dangers  threatening  the  community. 
The  land,  they  declare,  is  Catholic,  the  people  are  faithful,  cher- 
ishing the  religion  of  Rome  in  their  hearts,  and  professing  it  with 
their  hps.  Yet  so  fierce  are  the  dissensions  between  them  and  the 
inquisitors,  that  they  are  aroused  to  wrath  and  are  eager  to  put 
to  the  sword  those  whom  they  have  learned  to  regard  as  enemies. 
Doubtless  the  inquisitors  had  taken  advantage  of  the  revulsion 
consequent  upon  the  fruitless  treason  of  Carcassonne  and  of  the 
altered  attitude  of  the  king.  Philippe  thenceforth  interfered  no 
further,  save  to  urge  his  representatives  to  renewed  vigilance  in 
enforcing  the  laws  against  heretics  and  the  disabilities  inflicted 
upon  their  descendants.  It  was  not  only  the  treason  of  Carcas- 
sonne which  indisposed  him  to  interfere ;  from  1307  onward  he 
needed  the  indispensable  aid  of  the  Inquisition  to  carry  out  his 
designs  against  the  Templars,  and  he  could  afford  neither  to  an- 
tagonize it  nor  to  limit  its  powers.* 

The  Sacred  College,  monopohzed  by  electioneering  intrigues, 
paid  no  heed  to  the  imploring  prayer  of  the  Albigensian  clergy, 
but  when  the  year's  turmoil  was  ended  by  the  triumph  of  the 
French  party  in  the  election  of  Clement  V.  the  hopes  raised  by 
the  death  of  his  predecessor  might  reasonably  seem  destined  to 
fruition.  Bertrand  de  Goth,  Cardinal-Archbishop  of  Bordeaux, 
was  a  Gascon  by  birth,  and,  though  an  English  subject,  was  doubt- 
less more  famihar  than  the  Italians  with  the  miseries  and  needs 
of  Languedoc.    His  transfer  of  the  papacy  to  French  soil  was  also 


to  the  insults  offered  to  the  Dominicans  during  the  troubles  of  Carcassonne, 
when  those  who  ventured  into  the  streets  were  followed  with  cries  of  "  Coac, 
Coac!"  "-ad  modum  core/"— MS.  No.  4270,  fol.  281. 

*  Arch,  de  I'hotel-de-villc  d'Albi  (Doat,  XXXIV.  42).— Arch,  de  I'llvgchfi 
d'Albi  (Doat,  XXXII.  81). 


92  LANGUEDOC. 

of  good  augury.  Hardly  had  the  news  of  his  election  reached 
Albi,  when  Frere  Bernard  was  busy  in  organizing  a  mission  to 
represent  to  him  in  the  name  of  the  city  the  necessity  of  relief, 
and  when  he  visited  Toulouse  the  wives  of  the  prisoners,  still  lan- 
guishing in  confinement,  were  taken  thither  to  make  their  Avoes 
emphatically  known.  Hardly  had  he  been  consecrated  at  Lyons 
when  these  complaints  poured  in  and  were  substantiated  by  two 
Dominicans,  Bertrand  Blanc  and  Francois  Aimeric,  who  were  as 
emphatic  as  the  representatives  of  Albi  in  their  denunciations  of 
inquisitorial  methods  and  abuses.  Geoff roi  d'Ablis  hurried  thither 
from  Carcassonne  to  defend  himself  in  such  haste  that  he  left  no 
one  to  take  his  place,  and  was  obliged  to  send  from  Lyons,  Septem- 
ber 29,  1305,  a  commission  to  Jean  de  Faugoux  and  Gerald  de 
Blumac  to  act  in  his  stead.  In  this  paper  his  fiery  fanaticism 
breathes  forth  in  his  denunciations  of  the  horrid  beasts,  the  cruel 
beasts,  who  are  ravaging  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord,  and  who  are  to 
be  tracked  to  their  dens  and  extirpated  with  unsparing  rigor. ''^ 

His  efforts  to  justify  the  Inquisition  were  unavailing,  more 
especially,  perhaps,  because  the  people  of  Albi  bribed  Cardinal 
Raymond  de  Goth,  the  pope's  nephew,  with  two  thousand  livres 
Tournois,  the  Cardinal  of  Santa  Croce  with  as  much,  and  the  Car- 
dinal Pier  Colonna  with  five  hundred.  March  13,  1306,  Clement 
commissioned  two  cardinals,  Pierre  of  San  Vitale  (afterwards  of 
Palestrina)  and  Berenger  of  SS.  Nereo  and  Achille  (afterwards  of 
Frascati),  who  were  about  to  pass  through  Languedoc  on  a  mis- 
sion, to  investigate  and  make  such  temporary  changes  as  they 
should  find  necessary.  The  people  of  Carcassonne,  Albi,  and 
Cordes  had  offered  to  prove  that  good  Catholics  were  forced  to 
confess  heresy  through  the  stress  of  torture  and  the  horrors  of  the 
prisons,  and  further  that  the  records  of  the  Inquisition  were  altered 
and  falsified.  Until  the  investigation  was  completed,  the  inquis- 
itors were  not  to  consign  to  strict  prison  or  to  inflict  torture  on 


*  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  4270,  fol.  10-11,  84, 128, 166-7.— Arch,  de  I'lnq. 
de  Care.  (Doat,  XXXII.  83). 

Geofifroi's  stay  at  Lyons  was  prolonged.  November  29,  we  find  him  issuing 
commissions  to  those  appointed  by  his  deputies  (Doat,  XXXH.  85).  Jean  de 
Fnucoux  had  been  connected  with  the  Inquisition  for  at  least  twenty  years  (Doat, 
XXXII.  125). 


INVESTIGATION    BY    THE    CARDINALS.  93 

any  one  except  in  conjunction  with  the  diocesan,  and  in  the 
place  of  the  Bishop  of  Albi  the  Abbot  of  Fontfroide  was  subro- 
gated. 

On  April  16,  1306,  the  cardinals  held  a  public  session  at  Car- 
cassonne in  presence  of  all  the  notables  of  the  place.  The  consuls 
of  Carcassonne  and  the  delegates  of  Albi  preferred  their  com- 
plaints and  were  supported  by  the  two  Dominicans,  Blanc  and 
Aimeric,  who  had  appeared  before  the  pope.  On  the  other  hand, 
Geoffroi  d'Ablis  and  the  deputy  of  the  Bishop  of  Albi  defended 
themselves  and  complained  of  the  popular  riots  and  the  ill-treatment 
to  which  they  had  been  exposed.  After  hearing  both  sides  the 
cardinals  adjourned  further  proceedings  until  January  25,  at  Bor- 
deaux, where  Carcassonne,  Albi,  and  Cordes  were  each  to  send  four 
procurators  to  conduct  the  matter.  As  this  office  was  a  most  dan- 
gerous one,  the  cardinals  gave  security  to  them  against  the  Inqui- 
sition during  the  performance  of  their  duty.  This  was  no  idle  pre- 
caution, and  Aimeric  Castel,  one  of  the  representatives  of  Carcas- 
sonne, found  himself  in  such  danger  that  in  September,  1308,  he 
was  obliged  to  procure  from  Clement  a  special  bull  forbidding  the 
inquisitors  to  assail  him  until  the  termination  of  the  affair.  Even 
greater  danger  impended  over  any  witnesses  called  upon  to  prove 
the  falsification  of  records,  as  they  were  bound  to  silence  under 
oaths  which  exposed  them  to  the  stake  as  relapsed  heretics  in 
case  they  revealed  their  evidence,  and  the  cardinals  were  asked  to 
absolve  them  from  these  oaths.* 

If  there  were  any  further  formal  proceedings  in  this  matter, 
which  thus  assumed  the  shape  of  a  litigation  between  the  people 
and  the  Inquisition,  they  have  not  reached  us.  Yet  the  cardinals, 
before  continuing  their  journey,  took  some  steps  which  showed  that 
they  were  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  accusations.  They  visited 
the  prison  of  Carcassonne,  and  caused  the  prisoners,  forty  in  num- 
ber, of  whom  three  were  women,  to  be  brought  before  them.  Some 
of  these  were  sick,  others  worn  with  age,  and  all  tearfuUy  com- 
plaining of  the  horrors  of  their  lot,  the  insufficiency  of  food  and 
bedding,  and  the  cruelty  of  their  keepers.  The  cardinals  were 
moved  to  dismiss  all  the  jailers  and  attendants  except  the  chief. 


•  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  254.— Arch,  de  riiotel-de-ville 
d'Albi  (Boat,  XXXIV.  45).— Arch,  de  I'Inq.  de  Care.  (Doat,  XXXIII.  48). 


94  LANGUEDOC. 

and  to  put  the  prison  under  the  control  of  the  Bishop  of  Carcas- 
sonne. It  is  significant  that  the  oath  imposed  on  the  new  officials 
bound  them  never  to  speak  to  a  prisoner  except  in  the  presence  of 
an  associate,  and  not  to  steal  any  of  the  food  destined  for  those 
under  their  charge.  One  of  the  cardinals  visited  the  prison  of  the 
Bishop  of  Albi,  where  he  found  the  jailers  well  spoken  of,  but 
was  shocked  with  the  condition  of  the  prisoners.  Many  of  them 
were  in  chains  and  all  in  narrow,  dark  cells,  where  some  of  them 
had  been  confined  for  five  years  or  more  without  being  yet  con- 
demned. He  ordered  all  chains  removed,  that  light  should  be  in- 
troduced in  the  cells,  and  that  new  and  less  inhuman  ones  should 
be  built  within  a  month.  As  regards  general  amelioration  in  in- 
quisitorial proceedings,  the  only  regulation  which  they  issued  was 
a  confirmation  of  Philippe's  expedient,  requiring  the  co-operation 
of  the  diocesan  with  the  inquisitor,  and  this  was  withdrawn  by 
Clement,  August  12,  1308,  in  an  apologetic  bull  declaring  that 
the  cardinals  had  exceeded  his  intentions.^ 

The  existence  of  the  evils  complained  of  was  thus  admitted, 
but  the  Church  shrank  from  appl3ang  a  remedy,  and,  after  the 
struggle  of  years,  relief  was  as  illusory  as  ever.  Even  with  regard 
to  the  crying  and  inexcusable  abuse  of  the  detention  of  prisoners 
in  these  fearful  dungeons  for  long  years  without  conviction  or 
sentence,  Clement  found  himself  powerless  to  effect  reform  in  the 
most  flagrant  cases.  The  inquisitors  had  in  their  archives  a  bull 
of  Innocent  IV.  authorizing  them  to  defer  indefinitely  passing 
sentence  when  they  deemed  that  delay  was  in  the  interest  of  the 
faith,  and  of  this  they  took  full  advantage.  Of  the  captives  seized 
by  the  Bishop  of  Albi  in  1299,  many  were  still  unsentenced  when 
the  Cardinal  of  San  Yitale  examined  his  prisons.  This  visit  passed 
away  without  result.  Five  years  afterwards,  in  1310,  Clement 
wrote  to  the  Bishop  of  Albi  and  Geoffroi  d'Ablis  that  the  citizens 


*Arch.  de  I'liotel-de-ville  d'Albi  (Doat,  XXXIV.  45).— Arch,  de  I'lnq.  de 
Care.  (Doat,  XXXIV.  89,  113).  — Bern.  Guidon  Gravam.  (Doat,  XXX.  95-6.)  — 
Ripoll  II.  112. 

I  designed  printing  in  the  Appendix  the  Gravamina  of  Bernard  Gui  and  the 
report  of  the  Cardinals.  M.  Charles  Molinier,  however,  I  understand,  is  engaged 
on  an  edition  of  these  documents,  to  be  accompanied  with  a  complete  apparatus, 
which  will  render  any  other  publication  superfluous. 


INQUISITORIAL    CONTUMACY.  95 

of  Albi,  whom  he  names,  had  repeatedly  appealed  to  him,  after 
more  than  eight  years  of  imprisonment,  to  have  their  trials  com- 
pleted either  to  condemnation  or  absolution.  He  therefore  ordere 
the  trials  proceeded  with  at  once  and  the  results  submitted  for 
confirmation  to  the  Cardinals  of  Palestrina  and  Frascati,  his  for- 
mer commissioners.  Bertrand  de  Bordes,  Bishop  of  Albi,  and  Geof- 
froi  d'Ablis  contemptuously  disregarded  this  command,  because 
some  of  the  prisoners  named  in  it  had  died  before  its  date,  whence 
they  argued  that  the  papal  letter  had  been  surreptitiously  ob- 
tained. When  this  contumacy  reached  the  ears  of  Clement,  some 
year  or  two  later,  he  wrote  to  Geraud,  then  Bishop  of  Albi,  and 
Geoffroi,  peremptorily  reiterating  his  commands  and  ordering 
them  to  try  both  living  and  dead.  In  spite  of  this,  Geoffroi 
maintained  his  sullen  contumacy.  We  have  no  means  of  know- 
ing the  fate  of  most  of  these  unfortunates,  who  probably  rotted  to 
death  in  their  dungeons  without  their  trials  being  concluded  ;  but 
of  some  of  them  we  have  traces,  as  related  in  a  former  chapter. 
After  Clement  and  his  cardinals  had  passed  away,  and  no  further 
interference  was  to  be  dreaded,  in  1319  two  surviving  ones, 
Guillem  Salavert  and  Isarn  Colli,  were  brought  out  for  further 
examination,  when  the  former  confirmed  his  confession  and  the 
latter  retracted  it  as  extorted  under  torture.  Six  months  later, 
Guillem  Calverie  of  Cordes,  who  had  been  imprisoned  in  1301, 
was  abandoned  to  the  secular  arm  for  retracting  his  confession 
(probably  before  Clement's  cardinals),  and  Guillem  Salavert  was 
allowed  to  escape  with  wearing  crosses,  in  consideration  of  his 
nineteen  years'  imprisonment  without  conviction.  Even  as  late  as 
1328  attested  copies  made  by  order  of  the  royal  judge  of  Carcas- 
sonne, of  inventories  of  personal  property  of  Raymond  Calverie 
and  Jean  Baudier,  two  of  the  prisoners  of  1299-1300,  show  that 
their  cases  were  still  the  subject  of  litigation.  Even  more  remark- 
able as  a  manifestation  of  contumacy  is  the  case  of  Guillem  Gar- 
ric,  held  in  prison  for  complicity  in  the  attempt  to  destroy  the 
records  at  Carcassonne  in  1284.  Royal  letters  of  1312  recite  that 
his  merits  and  piety  had  caused  Clement  Y.  to  grant  him  full  par- 
don, wherefore  the  king  restores  to  him  and  his  descendants  his 
confiscated  castle  of  Monteirat.  Yet  the  Inquisition  did  not  re- 
lax its  grip,  but  waited  until  1321,  when  he  was  brought  forth 
from  prison,  and  in  consideration  of  his  contrition  Bernard  Gni 


96  L  A  N  G  U  E  D  O  C. 

mercifully  sentenced  the  old  man  to  perpetual  banishment  from 
France  within  thirty  days.* 

Another  endeavor  was  made  by  Clement  to  repress  the  abuses 
of  the  Inquisition  by  transferring  from  its  jurisdiction  to  that  of 
the  bishops  the  Jews  of  the  provinces  of  Toulouse  and  Narbonne 
on  account  of  the  undue  molestation  to  which  they  were  continu- 
ally subjected.  This  transfer  even  included  cases  then  pending, 
but  after  Clement's  death  a  bull  was  produced  in  which  he  an- 
nulled the  previous  one  and  restored  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inqui- 
sition.f 

The  outcome  of  all  this  struggle  and  investigation  is  to  be 
found  in  the  measures  of  reform  adopted  in  1312  by  the  Council 
of  Vienne  at  Clement's  instance.  The  five  books  of  canon  law 
known  as  the  "  Clementines,"  which  were  enacted  by  the  council, 
were  retained  for  revision  by  Clement,  who  was  on  the  point  of 
pubhshing  them  when  he  died,  April  20, 1314.  They  were  held 
in  suspense  during  the  long  interregnum  which  followed,  and  were 
not  authoritatively  given  to  the  world  until  October  25,  1317, 
by  John  XXII.  The  canons  relating  to  the  Inquisition  have  been 
alluded  to  above,  and  it  will  be  remembered  that  they  only  re- 
stricted the  power  of  the  inquisitor  by  requiring  episcopal  concur- 
rence in  the  use  of  torture,  or  of  harsh  confinement  equivalent  to 
torture,  and  in  the  custody  of  prisons.  There  was  a  hrutum  ful- 
men  of  excommunication  denounced  against  those  who  should 
abuse  their  power  for  purposes  of  hate,  affection,  or  extortion,  and 
the  importance  of  the  whole  Hes  far  less  in  the  remedies  it  proposes 
than  in  its  emphatic  testimony  of  the  existence  of  cruelty  and 

*  Arch,  de  I'Inq.  de  Care.  (Boat,  XXXI.  74 ;  XXXIV.  89).— MSS.  Bib.  Nat., 
fonds  latin,  No.  11847.— Lib.  Sententt.  Inq.  Tolos.  pp.  238,  366-7,  283-5.— Coll. 
Doat,  XXXII.  309,  316.— Vaissette,  fid.  Privat,  X.  Pr.  536. 

t  Archives  de  Tlnq.  de  Carcassonne  (Doat,  XXXVII.  855). 

The  Inquisition  seems  to  have  by  some  means  acquired  jurisdiction  over  the 
Jews  of  Languedoc.  In  1379  there  is  a  charter  granted  by  Bernard,  Abbot  of 
S.  Antonin  of  Pamiers,  to  the  Jews  of  Pamiers,  approving  of  certain  statutes 
agreed  upon  among  themselves  concerning  their  internal  affairs,  thus  showing 
them  subjected  to  the  abbatial  jurisdiction.  Yet  in  1397  we  have  a  letter  from 
the  inquisitor,  Frfere  Amaud  Jean,  ordering  the  Jews  of  Pamiers  to  live  accord- 
ing to  the  customs  of  the  Jews  of  Narbonne,  and  promising  not  to  introduce 
"  aliquas  graves  et  insolitas  noritates.^'  During  the  interval  they  had  thus  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  Inquisition.— Coll.  Doat,  XXXVII.  156,  160. 


CLEMENTS  REFORMS  NUGATORY.        97 

corruption  in  every  detail  of  inquisitorial  practice,  Bernard  Gui 
vainly  raised  his  voice  in  an  earnest  and  elaborate  protest  against 
the  publication  of  the  new  rules,  and  after  their  promulgation  he 
did  not  hesitate  openly  to  tell  his  brethren  that  they  required  to 
be  modified  or  rather  wholly  suspended  by  the  Holy  See,  but  his 
expostulations  were  totally  uncalled  for.  The  closest  examination 
of  inquisitorial  methods  before  and  after  the  publication  of  the 
Clementines  fails  to  reveal  any  influence  exercised  by  them  for 
good  or  for  evil.  ISlo  trace  of  any  practical  effort  for  their  en- 
forcement is  to  be  found,  and  inquisitors  went  on,  as  was  their 
wont,  in  the  arbitrary  fashion  for  which  their  office  gave  them 
such  unlimited  opportunity.* 

One  case  may  indeed  be  cited  to  show  a  special  relaxation  of 
the  procedure  against  heretics.  Philippe's  hatred  of  Boniface 
YIII.  was  undying,  and  could  not  be  quenched  even  by  the  miser- 
able end  of  his  enemy.  Yet  the  one  thing  which  he  failed  to 
wring  from  his  tool  in  the  papal  chair  was  the  condemnation  of 
the  memory  of  Boniface  as  a  heretic.  After  repeated  efforts  he 
compelled  Clement  to  take  testimony  on  the  subject,  and  a  cloud 
of  witnesses  were  produced  who  swore  with  minute  detail  to  the 
unbelief  of  the  late  pope  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  in  all 
the  doctrines  of  the  incarnation  and  the  atonement,  and  to  his 
worship  of  demons,  to  his  cynical  and  unnatural  lasciviousness, 
and  to  the  coimnon  fame  Avhich  existed  in  the  community  as  to 
his  evil  beliefs  and  habits.  The  witnesses  were  reputable  church- 
men for  the  most  part,  and  their  evidence  was  precise.  A  tithe 
of  such  testimony  would  have  sufficed  to  burn  the  bones  and  dis- 
inherit the  heirs  of  a  score  of  ordinary  culprits,  but  for  once  the 
recognized  rules  of  procedure  were  set  aside.     Philippe  was  forced 


*  Martin  Fuldens.  Chron.  ann.  1312. — C.  1, 2,  3,  Clement,  v.  iii.— Bern.  Guidon. 
Gravam.  (Doat,  XXX.). — Bern.  Guidon.  Practica,  P.  rv.  c.  1. 

It  is  due  to  Clement  to  say  that  doubtless  he  devised  a  much  more  thorough 
reform,  and  the  meagreness  of  the  outcome  is  probably  attributable  to  the  final 
revision  under  John  XXII.  Angelo  da  Clarino,  writing  from  Avignon  in  1313, 
about  the  new  canons,  which  were  then  supposed  to  be  ready  for  issue,  says: 
'•'■  Inquisitores  etiam  heretice  pratitntis  restrmriuntur  et  sujyponuntur  ejnscopis''^ — 
which  would  argue  something  much  more  decisive  than  the  regulations  as  they 
finally  appeared. — Franz  Ehrle,  Archiv.  fiir  Litteratur-  u.  Kirchengeschichte, 
1885,  p.  545. 
II.— Y 


98  LANGUEDOC. 

to  desist  from  the  pursuit,  though  Clement  in  his  final  bull  of 
April  27,  1311,  declared  that  the  king  and  his  witnesses  had  been 
actuated  solely  by  zeal  for  the  Church,  and  the  affair  fell  through. 
The  pretensions  put  forth  by  J3oniface  in  his  offensive  decretals 
were  formally  withdrawn,  and  Guillaume  de  Nogaret  obtained 
his  long-withheld  absolution.* 

Clement  died  at  Carpentras  April  20, 1314,  carrying  with  him 
the  shame  and  guilt  of  the  ruin  of  the  Templars,  and  was  followed 
in  about  seven  months  (November  29)  by  his  tempter  and  ac- 
complice, Philippe  le  Bel.  The  cardinals  on  whom  devolved  the 
choice  of  a  successor  to  St.  Peter  were  torn  with  dissensions.  The 
Italians  demanded  that  the  election  should  be  held  in  the  Eternal 
City.  The  French,  or  Gascons,  as  they  were  called,  insisted  on 
the  observance  of  the  rule  that  the  selection  should  be  made  on 
the  spot  where  the  last  pontiff  had  expired,  knowing  that  in  Italy 
they  would  be  exposed  to  the  same  insults  and  annoyances  as 
were  inflicted  in  France  on  their  Italian  brethren.  Shut  up  in  the 
episcopal  palace  of  Carpentras,  the  conclave  awaited  in  vain  the 
inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  even  though  those  outside  tried  the 
gentle  expedient  of  cutting  off  the  food  of  the  members  and  pil- 
laging their  houses.  The  situation  grew  so  insupportable  that,  as 
a  last  desperate  resort,  on  July  23, 1314,  the  Gascon  faction,  under 
the  lead  of  Clement's  nephews,  set  fire  to  the  palace  and  threat- 
ened the  Italians  with  death,  so  that  the  latter  were  glad  to  escape 
with  their  lives  by  breaking  a  passage  through  the  rear  wall. 
Two  years  passed  away  without  the  election  of  a  visible  head  of 
the  Church,  and  the  faithful  might  well  fear  that  they  had  seen 
the  last  of  the  popes.  The  French  court,  however,  had  found 
itself  so  well  abetted  by  a  French  pope  that  its  policy  required  the 
chair  of  St.  Peter  to  be  filled,  and  in  1216  Louis  Hutin  sent  his 
brother,  Philippe  le  Long,  then  Count  of  Poitiers,  to  Lyons  with 
orders  to  get  the  cardinals  together.  To  accomplish  this  Philippe 
was  obliged  to  swear  that  he  would  neither  do  them  violence  nor 
imprison  them,  and  they,  having  thus  secured  their  independence, 
were  no  more  disposed  to  accord  than  before.  For  six  months 
the  business  thus  lagged  without  prospect  of  result,  when  Philippe 
received  the  news  of  the  sudden  death  of  his  brother,  and  that  the 


•  Du  Puy,  Histoire  du  Diflferend,  Preuves,  pp.  522-603. 


ELECTION    OF    JOHN    XXII.  99 

widowed  queen  claimed  to  be  pregnant.  The  prospect  of  a  vacant 
throne,  or  at  least  of  a  regency,  awaiting  him  in  Paris  rendered 
further  dallying  in  Lyons  insupportable,  nor  could  he  well  depart 
without  bringing  his  errand  to  a  successful  issue.  Hastily  coun- 
selHng  with  his  lawyers,  it  was  discovered  that  his  oath  was  un- 
lawful and  therefore  not  to  be  observed.  Consequently  he  invited 
the  reverend  fathers  to  a  colloquy  in  the  Dominican  convent,  and 
when  they  were  thus  safely  hived  he  sternly  told  them  that  they 
should  not  depart  till  they  had  chosen  a  pope.  His  guards  blocked 
every  entrance,  and  he  hastened  off  to  Paris,  leaving  them  to  de- 
liberate in  captivity.  Thus  entrapped  they  made  a  merit  of  neces- 
sity, though  forty  days  were  still  required  before  they  proclaimed 
Jacques  d'Ozo,  Cardinal  of  Porto,  as  the  Vicar  of  Christ — the 
Itahans  having  been  won  over  by  his  oath  that  he  would  never 
mount  a  horse  or  mule  except  to  go  to  Rome.  This  oath  he  kept 
during  his  whole  pontificate  of  eighteen  years,  for  he  slipped  down 
the  Rhone  to  Avignon  by  boat,  ascended  on  foot  to  the  palace, 
and  never  left  it  except  to  visit  the  cathedral  which  adjoined  it. 
Such  a  process  of  selection  was  not  likely  to  result  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  a  saint,  and  John  XXII.  was  its  natural  exponent.  His 
distinguished  learning  and  vigorous  abilities  had  elevated  him 
from  the  humblest  origin,  while  his  boundless  ambition  and  im- 
perious temper  provoked  endless  quarrels  from  which  his  daring 
spirit  never  shrank.* 

With  his  election  the  troubles  of  the  Inquisition  of  Languedoc 
were  over.  Though  he  pubhshed  the  Clementines,  he  soon  let  it 
be  seen  that  the  inquisitors  had  nothing  to  fear  from  him,  and  they 
made  haste  to  pay  off  the  accumulated  scores  of  vengeance.  The 
first  victim  was  Bernard  Delicieux.  During  the  pontificate  of 
Clement  and  the  interregnum  he  had  lived  in  peace,  and  might 
weU  imagine  that  his  enthusiasm  for  the  people  of  Languedoc  hiid 
been  forgotten.  His  earnest  nature  had  led  him  to  join  the  sec- 
tion of  his  order  known  as  the  Spirituals,  and  he  had  been  promi- 

*  Joann.  Canon.  S.Victor.  Chron.  ann.  1314-16. — Rymer,  Foedera,  III.  494-5 
— Grandcs  Chroniques,  ann.  1314-lG. — Bern.  Guidon.  Vit.  Joann.  PP.  XXII.- 
Ptolmaei  Lucens.  Append. 

John  XXII.  has  always  passed  as  the  son  of  a  cobbler  of  Cahors.  Recent  re- 
searches, however,  render  it  probable  that  lie  belonged  to  a  well-to-do  burgher 
family. — A.  Moliuier  (Vaissette,  lid.  Privat,  X.  303). 


100  LANGUEDOC. 

nent  in  the  movements  by  which,  during  the  vacancy  of  the  Holy 
See,  they  had  gained  possession  of  the  convents  of  Beziers  and 
Narbonne.  One  of  the  first  cares  of  John  XXII.  was  to  heal  this 
schism  in  the  Order,  and  he  promptly  summoned  before  him  tlic 
friars  of  Beziers  and  Narbonne.  Bernard  had  not  hesitated  in 
signing  an  appeal  to  the  pope,  and  he  now  boldly  came  before 
him  at  the  head  of  his  brethren.  When  he  undertook  to  argue 
their  cause  he  was  accused  of  having  impeded  the  Inquisition  and 
was  promptly  arrested.  Besides  the  charge  of  impeding  the  In- 
quisition, others  of  encompassing  by  magic  arts  the  death  of  Bene- 
dict XI.,  and  of  treason  in  the  affair  of  Carcassonne,  were  brought 
against  him.  A  papal  commission  was  formed  to  investigate  these 
matters,  and  for  more  than  two  years  he  was  held  in  close  prison 
while  the  examination  went  slow^ly  on.  At  length  it  w^as  ready 
for  trial,  and  September  3,  1319,  a  court  w^as  convened  at  Castel- 
naudari  consisting  of  the  Archbishop  of  Toulouse  and  the  Bishops 
of  Pamiers  and  St.  Papoul,  w^hen  the  archbishop  excused  himself 
and  left  the  matter  in  the  hands  of  his  associates,  who  transferred 
the  court  to  Carcassonne,  September  12.  The  importance  attached 
to  the  trial  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  at  it  the  Inquisition  was  rep- 
resented by  the  inquisitor  Jean  de  Beaune,  and  the  king  by  his 
Seneschal  of  Carcassonne  and  Toulouse  and  his  "  Eeformers," 
Kaoul,  Bishop  of  Laon,  and  Jean,  Count  of  Forez.* 

The  official  report  of  the  trial  has  been  preserved  in  all  its  im- 
mense prolixity,  and  there  are  few  documents  of  that  age  more  in- 
structive as  to  what  was  then  regarded  as  justice.  Some  of  Ber- 
nard's old  accomplices,  such  as  Arnaud  Garsia,  GuiUem  Fransa, 
Pierre  Probi,  and  others,  who  had  already  been  seized  by  the  In- 
quisition, were  brought  forward  to  be  tried  with  him  and  were 
used  as  witnesses  to  save  their  own  hves  by  swearing  his  away. 
The  old  man,  worn  with  two  years  of  imprisonment  and  constant 
examination,  was  subjected  for  two  months  to  the  sharpest  cross- 
questioning  on  occurrences  dating  from  twelve  to  eighteen  years 
previous,  the  subjects  of  the  multiform  charges  being  ingeniously 
intermingled  in  the  most  confusing  manner.     Under  pretext  of 


*  Joann.  Can.  S.Victor.  Chron.  ann.  1311,  1316-19. — Historia  Tribulationum 
(Archiv.  flir  Litteratur-  u.  Kircbengeschichte,  1886,  pp.  145-8).— Wadding,  ann. 
1318,  No.  26-7.— MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4370,  fol.  1,  39. 


CONDEMNATION    OF    BERNARD    DELICIEUX.       101 

seeking  the  salvation  of  his  soul  he  was  solemnly  and  repeatedly- 
admonished  that  he  ^yas  legally  a  heretic  for  remaining  for  more 
than  a  year  under  the  ipso  facto  excommunication  incurred  by  im- 
peding the  Inquisition,  and  that  nothing  could  save  him  from  the 
stake  but  absolute  submission  and  full  confession.  Twice  he  was 
tortured,  the  first  time,  October  3,  on  the  charge  of  treason,  and 
the  second,  November  20,  on  that  of  necromancy ;  and  though  the 
torture  was  ordered  to  be  "  moderate,"  the  notaries  who  assisted 
at  it  are  careful  to  report  that  the  shrieks  of  the  victim  attested 
its  sufficiency.  In  neither  case  was  anything  extracted  from  him, 
but  the  efficacy  of  the  combined  pressure  thus  brought  to  bear  on 
a  man  weakened  by  age  and  suffering  is  shown  by  the  manner  in 
which  he  was  brought  day  by  day  to  contradict  and  criminate 
himself,  until  at  last  he  threw  himself  on  the  mercy  of  the  court, 
and  humbly  begged  for  absolution.* 

In  the  sentence,  rendered  December  8,  he  was  acquitted  of  at- 
tempting the  life  of  Benedict  XI.,  while  on  the  other  charges  his 
guilt  was  aggravated  by  no  less  than  seventy  perjuries  committed 
under  examination.  After  abjuration,  he  was  duly  absolved  and 
condemned  to  degradation  from  holy  orders  and  imprisonment  for 
fife,  in  chains  and  on  bread  and  water,  in  the  inquisitorial  prison 
of  Carcassonne.  Considering  the  amnesty  proclaimed  in  1307  by 
Philippe  le  Bel,  and  the  discharge  of  Frere  Bernard  in  1308,  it 
seems  strange  that  now  the  representatives  of  Philippe  le  Long  at 
once  protested  against  the  sentence  as  too  mild,  and  appealed  to 
the  pope.  The  judges  themselves  did  not  think  so,  for  in  deliver- 
ing the  prisoner  to  Jean  de  Beaune  they  humanely  ordered  that 
in  view  of  his  age  and  debility,  and  especially  the  weakness  of  his 
hands  (doubtless  crippled  in  the  torture-chamber),  the  penance  of 
chains  and  bread  and  water  should  be  omitted.  Jean  de  Beaune 
may  be  pardoned  if  he  felt  a  fierce  exultation  when  the  ancient 
enemy  of  his  office  was  thus  placed  in  his  hands  to  expiate  the  of- 
fence which  had  so  harassed  his  predecessors ;  and  that  exulta- 
tion was  perhaps  increased  when,  February  26, 1320,  the  relentless 

*  MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  5,  81, 103-4, 146-7, 169. 

Aruaud  Garsia  and  Pierre  Probi  were  kept  in  prison  until  1325,  when  they 
were  released  on  payment  of  two  thousand  gold  florins,  and  such  penance  as 
Jean  Duprat,  the  inquisitor,  miglit  impose  on  them.  Their  sequestrated  property 
was  ordered  to  be  restored. — Vaissette,  ;&d.  Privat,  X.  Pr.  645. 


102  LANGUEDOC. 

pope,  possibly  to  gratify  the  king,  countermanded  the  pitying  or- 
der of  the  bishops,  and  required  the  sentence  to  be  executed  in  all 
its  terrible  rigor.  Under  these  hardships  the  frail  body  which  had 
been  animated  by  so  dauntless  a  spirit  soon  gave  way,  and  in  a 
few  months  merciful  death  released  the  only  man  who  had  dared 
to  carry  on  a  systematic  warfare  with  the  Inquisition.''^ 

The  progress  of  reaction  had  been  rapid.  In  1315  Louis  Hutin 
had  issued  an  edict  in  which  were  embodied  most  of  the  provisions 
of  the  laws  of  Frederic  II.  This  piece  of  legislation,  perfectly 
superfluous  in  view  of  the  eighty  years'  career  of  the  Inquisition 
in  his  dominions,  is  only  of  interest  as  sho^ving  the  influence  al- 
ready obtained  by  the  Dominicans  during  the  papal  interregnum. 
With  the  election  of  John  XXII.,  notwithstantling  his  pubhcation 
of  the  Clementines,  aU  fear  of  interference  disappeared,  and  the 
populations  were  surrendered  again  to  the  unchecked  authority  of 
the  inquisitors.  There  was  a  significant  notice  to  this  effect  in  the 
withdrawal  by  the  new  pope,  March  30, 1318,  of  the  security  given 
by  Clement's  cardinals  to  Aimeric  Castel  and  the  other  citizens  of 
Carcassonne,  Albi,  and  Cordes,  who  were  deputed  to  carry  on  the 
case  of  those  cities  against  the  inquisitors,  and  the  latter  were  di- 
rected to  prosecute  them  diligently.  The  Inquisition  recognized 
that  its  hour  of  triumph  had  come,  and  took  in  hand  the  survivors 
of  those  who  had  been  conspicuous  in  the  disturbances  of  fifteen 
years  before.  The  unconvicted  prisoners  of  1299  and  1300,  whom 
it  had  held  in  defiance  of  the  reiterated  orders  of  Clement  —  at 
least  those  who  had  not  rotted  to  death  in  its  dungeons  —  were 
brought  forth  and  disposed  of.  A  still  more  emphatic  assertion  of 
its  renewed  mastery  was  the  subjection  and  "  reconciliation "  of 
the  rebellious  towns.  Of  what  took  place  at  Carcassonne  we  have 
no  record,  but  it  probably  was  the  same  as  the  ceremonies  per- 
formed at  Albi.  There,  March  11,  1319,  the  consuls  and  council- 
lors and  a  great  crowd  of  citizens  were  assembled  in  the  cathedral 
cemetery,  before  Bishop  Bernard  and  the  inquisitor  Jean  de  Beaune. 
There,  with  upHfted  hands,  they  aU  professed  repentance  in  the 
most  humiliating  terms,  and  swore  to  accept  whatever  penance 


*  Lib.  Sententt.  Inq.  Tolosan.  pp.  268-73.— MSS.  Bib,  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No. 
4370,  fol.  186-93.— Jo.  a  S.  Victore  Memor.  Historiale  ann.  1319  (Bouquet,  XXI. 
664;. 


VICTORY    OF    THE    INQUISITION.  103 

might  be  imposed  upon  them,  and  thereafter  to  ol)ey  imphcitly  the 
bishop  and  inquisitor.  Then  those  present,  together  with  the  dead 
who  had  shown  signs  of  penitence,  were  reheved  from  excommu- 
nication, the  rest  of  the  population  being  required  to  apply  for  ab- 
solution within  a  month.  The  announcement  of  the  penances  fol- 
lowed. The  town  was  to  make  good  all  expenses  and  losses  ac- 
cruing to  the  episcopate  and  Inquisition  by  reason  of  the  troubles ; 
it  was  to  build  and  complete  within  two  years  a  chapel  to  the 
cathedral,  and  a  portal  to  the  Dominican  church  ;  to  give  fifty 
livres  to  the  Carmelites  to  be  expended  on  their  church,  and,  finally, 
to  construct  marble  tombs  for  ]S[icholas  d'Abbeville,  and  Foulques 
de  Saint-Georges  at  Lyons  and  Carcassonne,  where  those  inquisitors 
had  died  in  poverty  and  exile  by  reason  of  the  rebellion  of  the  in- 
habitants. Ten  pilgrimages,  moreover,  were  designated  for  the 
survivors  of  those  who  in  1301  had  bound  themselves  to  prosecute 
Bishop  Bertrand  and  Nicholas  d'Abbeville  in  the  royal  court,  as 
well  as  for  those  who  had  served  as  consuls  and  councillors  from 
1302  to  1304.  Jean  de  Beaune  seems  to  have  considered  it  a  special 
gi-ace  when,  in  December,  1320,  he  postponed  the  performance  of 
their  pilgrimages  during  the  year  from  Easter,  1321,  to  1322.  The 
town  of  Cordes,  June  29,  1321,  was  "  reconciled "  with  a  similar 
humiliating  ceremony  and  pledges  of  future  obedience.  Thus  the 
Inquisition  celebrated  its  triumph  in  the  long  struggle.  It  had 
won  the  victory,  and  its  opponents  could  only  save  themselves  by 
unconditional  surrender.* 

Whether  the  citizens  of  Albi  Avhose  arrest  in  1299  gave  rise  to 
so  many  troubles  were  really  heretics  or  not  cannot  now  be  deter- 
mined. Their  confessions  were  precise  and  detailed,  but,  as  their 
defenders  alleged,  the  Inquisition  had  ample  means  of  extorting 
what  it  pleased  from  its  victims,  and  the  long  delay  in  convicting 
them  would  seem  to  argue  that  the  tribunal  had  good  reason  for 
not  wishing  its  sentences  to  see  the  light  while  there  was  chance 
of  their  being  subjected  to  scrutiny  under  Clement  V.  The  in- 
quisitors urged  in  justification  a  single  case,  that  of  Lambert  de 


*  Isambert,  Anc.  Loix  Fran9.  III.  123. — Arch,  de  ITuq.  de  Care.  (Doat,  XXXIL 
138).— MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  11847.— Lib.  Seutentt.  Inq.  Tolos,  pp.  228, 
244-8,  266-7,  277-81.  -Arcli.  de  riiOtel-de-ville  d'Albi  (Doat,  XXXIV.  169,  185). 


104  LANGUEDOC. 

Foyssenx,  who  complained  to  Clement's  cardinals  that  he  had  been 
unjustly  accused,  but  who  subsequently  asserted  his  heresy  defiant- 
ly, refused  to  recant,  and  was  l)urncd  in  1309.  This  is  the  only  in- 
stance of  the  kind,  for  the  wretched  survivors  who  were  led  to  ab- 
jure and  recant  in  1319  were  broken  by  prison  and  torture,  and 
their  evidence  is  worthless.* 

Yet  Bernard  Gui  was  undoubtedly  correct  when  he  asserted 
that  the  troubles  and  limitations  imposed  on  the  Inquisition  under 
Philippe  le  Bel  led  to  the  recrudescence  of  a  heresy  which  had 
been  nearly  extinguished.  In  the  debate  before  the  king  at  Tou- 
louse, in  1304,  Guillem  Pierre,  the  Dominican  provincial,  asserted 
that  there  were  then  in  Languedoc  no  heretics  except  some  forty 
or  fifty  in  Albi,  Carcassonne,  and  Cordes,  and  for  a  few  leagues 
around  them.  This  was  doubtless  an  exaggeration,  but  with  im- 
proved prospects  of  immunity  perfected  missionaries  were  invited 
from  Lombardy  and  Sicily,  and  the  number  of  believers  rapidly 
increased,  Bernard  Gui  boasts  that  from  1301  to  1315  there  were 
more  than  a  thousand  detected  by  the  Inquisition,  who  confessed 
and  were  publicly  punished,  f 

The  registers  of  Geoff roi  d'Ablis  at  Carcassonne  in  1308-9 
show  great  activity  rewarded  by  abundant  results,  and  one  of  the 
witnesses  in  the  trial  of  Bernard  Delicieux  tells  us  that,  when  the 
Inquisition  was  able  to  resume  its  labors  there,  many  heretics  and 
believers  were  promptly  discovered.:}:  About  the  same  period 
commence  the  sentences  of  the  Inquisition  of  Toulouse  published 
by  Limborch.  In  1306  Bernard  Gui  had  been  appointed  inquisitor 
at  Toulouse.  His  numerous  works  attest  his  wide  range  of  learn- 
ing and  incessant  mental  activity,  while  his  practical  skill  in  affairs 
was  animated  with  a  profound  conviction  of  the  wickedness  of 
heresy  and  of  the  duty  of  his  Order  to  enforce,  at  every  cost,  sub- 
mission to  Rome.  Two  missions  as  papal  legate,  one  to  Italy  and 
the  other  to  France,  and  two  bishoprics,  those  of  Tuy  and  Lodeve, 
attest  the  value  set  on  his  services  by  John  XXII.  With  his  ap- 
pointment at  Toulouse  he  promptly  commenced  the  long  campaign 

*  Bern.  Guidon.  Gravam.  (Doat,  XXX.  97). 

t  Ibid.  (Doat,  XXX.  96,  98).— MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  138- 
9,  213. 

J  Molinier,  L'Inq.  dans  le  midi  de  la  France,  p.  111. — MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds 
latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  285. 


PIERRE    AUTIER.  105 

which  resulted  in  the  virtual  extirpation  of  Catharism  in  Lan- 
guedoc.  Yet,  though  stern  and  unsparing  when  the  occasion 
seemed  to  demand  it,  his  record  bears  no  trace  of  useless  cruelty 
or  abusive  extortion.* 

Catharism  by  this  time  had  been  forced  back  to  the  humbler 
class  among  whom  it  had  found  its  first  disciples.  The  nobles  and 
gentlemen  who  had  so  long  upheld  it  had  perished  or  been  im- 
poverished by  the  remorseless  confiscations  of  three  quarters  of  a 
century.  The  rich  burghers  of  the  cities — merchants  and  profes- 
sional men — had  learned  the  temptations  held  out  by  their  wealth 
and  the  impossibility  of  avoiding  detection.  The  fascinations  of 
martyrdom  have  their  limits,  and  the  martyrs  among  them  had 
been  gradually  but  surely  weeded  out.  Yet  the  old  beliefs  were 
still  rooted  among  the  simple  folk  of  country  hamlets  and  especial- 
ly in  the  wild  valleys  among  the  foothills  of  the  eastern  Pyrenees. 
The  active  intercourse  with  Lombardy,  and  even  with  Sicily,  was 
still  kept  up,  and  there  were  not  wanting  earnest  ministers  who 
braved  every  danger  to  administer  to  believers  the  consolations  of 
their  religion  and  to  spread  the  faith  in  the  fastnesses  which  were 
its  last  refuge.  Chief  among  these  was  Pierre  Autier,  formerly  a 
notary  of  Ax  (Pamiers).  His  early  life  had  not  been  pure,  for  we 
hear  of  his  druda,  or  mistress,  and  his  natural  children,  but  with 
advancing  years  he  embraced  all  the  asceticism  of  the  sect,  to 
which  he  devoted  his  life.  Driven  to  Lombardy  in  1295,  he  re- 
turned in  1298  to  remain  on  his  native  soil  to  the  end,  and  to  en- 
dure a  war  to  the  knife  from  the  Inquisition.  His  property  was 
confiscated  and  his  family  dispersed  and  ruined.  The  region  to 
which  he  belonged  lay  at  the  foot  of  the  Pyrenees,  rugged,  with 
few  roads  and  many  caves  and  hiding-places,  whence  escape  across 
tlie  frontier  to  Aragon  was  comparatively  facile  ;  it  was  full  of  his 
kindred  who  were  devoted  to  him,  and  here  for  eleven  years  he 
maintained  himself,  lurking  in  disguise  and  wandering  from  place  to 
place  with  the  emissaries  of  the  Holy  Office  ever  on  his  track.  He 
had  been  ordained  to  the  ministry  at  Como,  and  speedily  acquired 
authority  in  the  sect  of  which  he  became  one  of  the  most  zealous, 
indefatigable,  and  intrepid  missionaries.     Already,  in  1300,  he  was 


*  Bern.  Guidon.  Hist.  Conv.  Prcedic.  (Marteue  Ampl.  Coll.  VI.  4C9).— Touron, 
Hommes  illustres  de  TOrdre  de  S.  Dominique,  II.  94. 


106  LANGUEDOC. 

SO  conspicuous  that  every  effort  was  made  for  his  apprehension. 
A  certain  Guillem  Jean  offered  the  Dominicans  of  Pamiers  to  be- 
tray him,  but  the  treachery  became  known  among  tlie  faithful, 
two  of  whom,  Pierre  d'Aere  and  Philippe  de  Larnat  enticed  Guil- 
lem to  tlie  bridge  at  Aliiat  l)y  night,  seized  him,  gagged  him,  car- 
ried him  off  to  the  mountains,  and,  after  extorting  a  confession,  cast 
him  over  a  precipice.  Worthy  lieutenants  of  Pierre  Autier  were 
his  brother  Guillem  and  his  son  Jacques,  Amiel  de  Perles,  Pierre 
Sanche,  and  Sanche  Mercadier,  whose  names  occur  everywhere 
throughout  the  confessions  as  active  missionaiics.  Jacques  Autier 
on  one  occasion  had  the  boldness  to  preach  at  midnight  to  a 
gathering  of  heretic  women  in  the  Church  of  Sainte-Croix  in  Tou- 
louse, the  spot  being  selected  as  one  in  which  they  could  best  hold 
their  meeting  undisturbed.* 

The  work  of  Geoffroi  d'Ablis  in  Carcassonne  seems  to  be  prin- 
cipally directed  to  determining  the  protectors  and  refuges  of 
Pierre  Autier.  At  Toulouse  Bernard  Gui  was  energetically  em- 
ployed in  the  same  direction.  The  heretic  was  driven  from  place 
to  place,  but  the  wonderful  fidelity  of  his  disciples  seemed  to  ren- 
der all  efforts  vain,  and  finally  Bernard  was  driven  to  the  expe- 
dient of  issuing,  August  10, 1309,  a  special  proclamation  as  an  in- 
citement for  his  capture. 

"Friar  Bernard  Gui,  Dominican,  Inquisitor  of  Toulouse,  to  all  worshippers  of 
Christ,  the  reward  and  crown  of  tternal  life.  Gird  yourselves,  Sons  of  God; 
arise  with  me,  Soldiers  of  Christ,  against  the  enemies  of  his  Cross,  those  corrupters 
of  the  truth  and  purity  of  Catholic  faith,  Pierre  Autier,  the  heresiarch,  and  his 
coheretics  and  accomplices,  Pierre  Sanche  and  Sanche  Mercadier.  Hiding  in 
concealment  and  walking  in  darkness,  I  order  them  by  the  virtue  of  God,  to  be 
tracked  and  seized  wherever  they  may  be  found,  promising  eternal  reward  from 
God,  and  also  a  fitting  temporal  payment  to  those  who  will  capture  and  produce 
them.  Watch,  therefore,  O  pastors,  lest  the  wolves  snatch  away  the  sheep  of  your 
flock !  Act  manfully,  faithful  zealots,  lest  the  adversaries  of  the  faith  fly  and 
escape !" 

This  stirring  exhortation  was  probably  superfluous,  for  the 
prey  was  captured  before  it  could  have  been  published  througli- 
out  the  land.  The  arrest  of  nearly  all  his  family  and  friends,  in 
1308-9,  had  driven  Pierre  Autier  from  his  accustomed  haunts. 


*  Lib.  Sententt.  Inq.  Tolos.  pp.  2,  3, 12, 13, 32,  68,  76, 81, 159.— Molinier,  Llnq. 
dans  le  midi  de  la  France,  pp.  145-56. 


CATHARISM    SUPPRESSED.  107 

About  St.  John's  Day  (June  24),  1309,  he  found  refuge  with  Per- 
rin  Maurel  of  Belpech,  near  Castelnaudari,  where  he  lay  for  five 
weeks  or  more.  Thither  came  his  daughter  Guillelma,  who  re- 
mained with  him  a  short  time,  and  the  two  departed  together. 
The  next  day  he  was  captured.  Perrin  Maurel  was  likewise  seized, 
and  with  customary  fidelity  stoutly  denied  everything  until  Pierre 
Autier,  in  prison,  advised  him  in  December  to  confess.* 

This  triumph  was  followed  in  October  by  the  capture  of  Amiel 
de  Perles,  who  forthwith  placed  himself  in  endura^  refusing  to  eat 
or  drink,  and,  as  he  was  fast  sinking,  to  prevent  the  stake  from 
being  robbed  of  its  prey,  a  special  auto  defe  was  hurriedly  arranged 
for  his  burning,  October  23.  While  yet  his  strength  lasted,  how- 
ever, Bernard  Gui  enjoyed  the  ghastly  amusement  of  making  the 
two  heresiarchs  in  his  presence  perform  the  act  of  heretical  "ado- 
ration."f 

Pierre  Autier  was  not  burned  until  the  great  auto  defe  of  April, 
1310,  when  Geoffroi  d'Ablis  came  from  Carcassonne  to  share  in 
the  triumph.  The  heresiarch  had  not  sought  to  conceal  his  faith, 
but  had  boldly  declared  his  obnoxious  tenets  and  had  pronounced 
the  Church  of  Rome  the  synagogue  of  Satan.  That  he  was  sub- 
jected to  the  extremity  of  torture,  however,  there  can  be  no  rea 
sonable  doubt — -not  to  extract  a  confession,  for  this  was  super- 
fluous, but  to  force  him  to  betray  his  disciples  and  those  who  had 
given  him  refuge.  His  intimate  acquaintance  with  all  the  heretics 
of  the  land  was  a  source  of  information  too  important  for  Bernard 
Gui  to  shrink  from  any  means  of  acquiring  it ;  and  the  copious 
details  thus  obtained  are  alluded  to  in  too  many  subsequent  sen- 
tences for  us  to  hesitate  as  to  the  methods  by  which  the  heresi- 
arch was  brought  to  place  his  friends  and  associates  at  the  mercy 
of  his  tormentors.:}; 

This  may  be  said  to  close  the  bloody  drama  of  Catharism  in 
Languedoc.  Armed  with  the  revelations  thus  obtained,  Bernard 
Gui  and  Geoifroi  d'Al)lis  required  but  a  few  years  more  to  con- 
vert or  burn  the  remnant  of  Pierre  Autier's  disciples  who  could 
be  caught,  and  to  drive  into  exile  those  who  eluded  their  spies. 
JSTo  new  and  self -de  voted  missionaries  arose  to  take  liis  place,  and 

*  Molinier,  op.  cit.  p.  157. — Lib.  Sententt.  Inq.  Tolos,  p.  103. 

t  Lib.  Sententt.  Inq.  Tolos.  p.  37. 

\  lAh.  Sententt.  luq.  Tolos.  pp.  59,  60,  64,  73,  74,  75,  92-3,  132. 


108  LANGUEDOC. 

after  1315  the  Patarin  almost  disappears  from  the  records  of  the 
Inquisition  in  France.  Some  few  scattering  cases  subsequently 
occur,  but  their  offences  are  of  old  date  and  almost  invariably 
revert  to  the  missionary  work  of  Pierre  Autier  and  his  associates. 
One  of  the  latest  of  these  is  recorded  in  an  undated  sentence, 
probably  of  1327  or  1328,  in  which  Jean  Duprat,  Inquisitor  of 
Carcassonne,  condemns  Guillelma  Torniere,  She  had  abjured  and 
had  been  long  confined  in  prison,  where  she  was  detected  in  mak- 
ing converts  and  praising  Guillem  Autier  and  Guillem  Balibaste 
as  good  and  saintly  men.  Under  interrogation  she  refused  to 
take  an  oath,  and  was  accordingly  burned.  In  1328,  Henri  de 
Chamay  of  Carcassonne  condemned  to  prison  Guillem  Amiel  for 
Catharism,  and  in  1329  he  sentenced  two  Cathari,  Bartolome  Pays 
and  Raymond  Garric  of  Albi,  whose  offences  had  been  committed 
respectively  thirty-five  and  forty  years  before.  In  the  same  year 
he  ordered  four  houses  and  a  farm  to  be  demolished  because  their 
owners  had  been  hereticated  in  them,  but  these  acts  had  doubtless 
been  performed  long  previous.  Confiscations  still  continued  for 
ancestral  offences,  but  Catliarism  as  an  existing  belief  may  be  said 
at  this  period  to  be  virtually  extinct  in  Languedoc,  where  it  had  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  before  had  a  reasonable  prospect  of  be- 
coming the  dominant  religion.* 

In  the  same  year,  1329,  occurred  a  case  which  is  not  without 
interest  as  showing  how  an  earnest  but  unstable  brain  pondering 
over  the  crime  and  misery  of  the  world,  wove  some  of  the  cruder 
elements  of  Catharism  and  Averrhoism  into  a  fantastic  theory. 


*  Lib.  Sententt.  Inq.  Tolos.  pp.  341-2.— Coll.  Doat,  XXVII.  198-200,  248; 
XXVIII.  128,  158. 

The  entire  disappearance  of  a  sect  once  so  numerous  and  powerful  as  the 
Cathari  has  appeared  so  unlikely  that  there  has  been  a  widespread  belief  that 
their  descendants  were  to  be  found  in  the  Cagots — the  accursed  race  of  the  Pyre- 
nees who  in  French  Navarre  were  only  admitted  to  common  legal  rights  in  1709, 
and  in  the  Spanish  province  in  1818,  some  of  them  still  existing  in  the  latter. 
The  Cagots  themselves  even  assumed  this  to  be  their  origin  in  an  appeal  to  Leo 
X.,  in  1517,  to  be  restored  to  human  society,  and  claimed  that  their  ancestral  er- 
rors had  been  long  atoned  for.  Yet  among  all  the  conjectures  as  to  the  origin 
of  this  mysterious  class,  the  descent  from  Catharans  would  seem  to  be  the  least 
admissible,  and  M.  de  Lagrfeze's  opinion  that  they  are  descendants  of  lepers  is 
sustained  by  arguments  which  appear  to  be  convincing. — Lagrfeze,  La  Navarre 
Fran9aise  I.  53-60.     Cf  Vaissette,  Liv.  xxxiv.  c.  79. 


CASE    OF    LIMOUX    NOIR.  109 

Limoux  Noir,  of  Saint-Paul  in  the  diocese  of  Alet,  had  already 
been  tried  by  his  bishop  in  1320,  but  had  been  able  to  evade  the 
unskilled  officials  of  the  episcopal  tribunal.  The  Inquisition  had 
surer  methods  and  speedily  brought  him  to  confession.  He  had 
formed  a  philosophy  of  the  Universe  which  superseded  all  religion. 
God  had  created  the  archangels,  these  the  angels,  and  the  latter 
the  sun  and  moon.  These  heavenly  bodies,  as  being  unstable  and 
corruptible,  were  females.  Out  of  their  urine  the  world  was 
formed,  and  was  necessarily  corrupt,  with  all  that  sprang  from  it. 
Moses,  Mahomet,  and  Christ  were  all  sent  by  the  sun  and  were 
teachers  of  equal  authority.  In  the  under  world  Christ  and  Ma- 
homet are  now  disputing  and  seeking  to  gain  followers.  Baptism 
was  of  no  more  use  than  the  circumcision  of  Israel  or  the  blessinsr 
of  Islam,  for  those  who  renounced  evil  in  baptism  grew  up  to  be 
robbers  and  strumpets.  The  Eucharist  was  naught,  for  God 
would  not  let  himself  be  handled  by  adulterers  such  as  the  priests. 
Matrimony  was  to  be  shunned,  for  from  it  sprang  robbers  and 
strumpets.  Thus  he  explained  away  and  rejected  all  the  doc- 
trines and  practices  of  the  Church.  To  see  whether  the  Saviours 
fast  of  forty  days  was  possible,  he  had  fasted  in  a  cabin  ten  days 
and  nights,  at  the  end  of  which  this  system  of  philosophy  had 
been  revealed  to  him  by  God.  Again,  in  1327,  he  had  placed  him- 
self in  endura^  with  the  resolve  to  carry  it  to  the  end,  but  had 
been  persuaded  by  his  brother  to  take  the  Eucharist,  to  save  his 
bones  from  being  burned  after  his  death.  He  was  sixty  years  old, 
and  his  crazy  doctrines  had  brought  him  a  few  disciples,  but  the 
sect  was  crushed  at  the  outset.  He  declared  to  the  inquisitor 
that  he  would  rather  be  flayed  alive  than  believe  in  transubstan- 
tiation,  and  he  proved  his  resolute  character  by  resisting  all  at- 
tempts to  induce  him  to  recant,  so  that  there  was  no  alternative 
but  to  abandon  him  to  the  secular  arm,  which  was  duly  done  and 
his  belief  perished  with  him,* 

Thus  the  Inquisition  triumphed,  as  force  will  generally  do 
when  it  is  sufficiently  strong,  skilfuDy  applied,  and  systematically 
continued  without  interruption  to  the  end.  In  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury the  south  of  France  had  been  the  most  civilized  land  of  Eu- 


•  Coll.  Boat,  XXVII.  216-25,  234. 


no  LANGUEDOC. 

rope.  There  commerce,  industry,  art,  science,  had  been  far  in 
advance  of  the  age.  Tlie  cities  had  won  virtual  self-government, 
were  proud  of  their  wealth  and  strength,  jealous  of  their  hberties, 
and  self-sacrificing  in  their  patriotism.  The  nobles,  for  the  most 
part,  were  cultivated  men,  poets  themselves  or  patrons  of  poetry, 
who  had  learned  that  their  prosperity  depended  on  the  prosperity 
of  their  subjects,  and  that  municipal  liberties  were  a  safeguard, 
rather  than  a  menace,  to  the  wise  ruler.  The  crusaders  came,  and 
their  unfinished  work  was  taken  up  and  executed  to  the  bitter  end 
by  the  Inquisition.  It  left  a  ruined  and  impoverished  country, 
with  shattered  industry  and  failing  commerce.  The  native  nobles 
were  broken  by  confiscation  and  replaced  by  strangers,  who  occu- 
pied the  soil,  introducing  the  harsh  customs  of  Northern  feudahsm, 
or  the  despotic  principles  of  the  Roman  law,  in  the  extensive  do- 
mains acquired  by  the  crown.  A  people  of  rare  natural  gifts  had 
been  tortured,  decimated,  humiliated,  despoiled,  for  a  century  and 
more.  The  precocious  civilization  which  had  promised  to  lead 
Europe  in  the  path  of  culture  was  gone,  and  to  Italy  was  trans- 
ferred the  honor  of  the  Renaissance.  In  return  for  this  was  unity 
of  faith  and  a  Church  which  had  been,  hardened  and  vitiated  and 
secularized  in  the  strife.  Such  Avas  the  work  and  such  the  out- 
come of  the  Inquisition  in  the  field  which  afforded  it  the  widest 
scope  for  its  activity,  and  the  fullest  opportunity  for  developing 
its  powers. 

Yet  in  the  very  triumph  of  the  Inquisition  was  the  assurance 
of  its  decline.  Supported  by  the  State,  it  had  earned  and  repaid 
the  royal  favor  by  the  endless  stream  of  confiscations  which  it 
poured  into  the  royal  coffers.  Perhaps  nothing  contributed  more 
to  the  consolidation  of  the  royal  supremacy  than  the  change  of 
ownership  which  threw  into  new  hands  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
lands  of  the  South.  In  the  territories  of  the  great  vassals  the 
right  to  the  confiscations  for  heresy  became  recognized  as  an  im- 
portant portion  of  the  droits  seigneuriaux.  In  the  domains  of  the 
crown  they  were  granted  to  favorites  or  sold  at  moderate  prices  to 
those  who  thus  became  interested  in  the  new  order  of  things.  The 
royal  officials  grasped  everything  on  which  they  could  lay  their 
hands,  whether  on  the  excuse  of  treason  or  of  heresy,  with  httle 
regard  to  any  rights ;  and  although  the  integrity  of  Louis  IX. 
caused  an  inquest  to  be  held  in  1262  which  restored  a  vast  amount 


RESULTS    OF    THE    INQUISITION.  HI 

of  property  illegally  held,  this  was  but  a  small  fraction  of  the 
whole.  To  assist  his  Parlement  in  setthng  the  innumerable  cases 
which  arose,  he  ordered,  in  12G0,  the  charters  and  letters  of  great- 
est importance  to  be  sent  to  Paris.  Those  of  each  of  the  six  sene- 
chaussees  filled  a  coffer,  and  the  six  coffers  were  deposited  in  the 
treasury  of  the  Sainte-Chapelle.  In  this  process  of  absorption  the 
case  of  the  extensive  Viscounty  of  Fenouilledes  may  be  taken  as 
an  illustration  of  the  zeal  with  which  the  Inquisition  co-operated 
in  securing  the  political  results  desired  by  the  crown.  Fenouil- 
ledes had  been  seized  during  the  crusades  and  given  to  Nunez  San- 
cho  of  Koussillon,  from  whom  it  passed,  through  the  King  of 
Aragon,  into  the  hands  of  St.  Louis.  In  1264  Beatrix,  widow  of 
Hugues,  son  of  the  former  Viscount  Pierre,  apphed  to  the  Parle- 
ment for  her  rights  and  dower  and  those  of  her  children.  Imme- 
diately the  inquisitor,  Pons  de  Poyet,  commenced  a  prosecution 
against  the  memory  of  Pierre,  who  had  died  more  than  twenty 
years  previously  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church,  and  had  been  buried 
with  the  Templars  of  Mas  Deu,  after  assuming  the  religious  habit 
and  receiving  the  last  sacraments.  He  was  condemned  for  having 
held  relations  with  heretics,  his  bones  were  dug  up  and  burned, 
and  the  Parlement  rejected  the  claim  of  the  daughter-in-law  and 
grandchildren.  Pierre,  the  eldest  of  these,  in  1300,  made  a  claim 
for  the  ancestral  estates,  and  Boniface  VIII.  espoused  his  quarrel 
with  the  object  of  giving  trouble  to  Philippe  le  Bel ;  but,  though 
the  affair  was  pursued  for  some  years,  the  inquisitorial  sentence 
held  good.  It  was  not  only  the  actual  heretics  and  their  descend- 
ants who  were  dispossessed.  The  land  had  been  so  deeply  tinct- 
ured with  heresy  that  there  were  few  indeed  whose  ancestors 
could  not  be  shown,  by  the  records  of  the  Inquisition,  to  have  in- 
curred the  fatal  taint  of  associating  with  them.* 


*  Vaissette,  III.  362,  496 ;  IV.  104-5,  211.— Archives  de  Fl&veclig  de  Bfeziers 
(Doat,  XXXI.  35).  — Beugnot,  Les  Olira  I.  1029-30.  — Les  Olim  I.  580.— Coll. 
Doat,  XXXIII.  1. 

The  extent  of  the  change  of  the  proprietorship  is  well  illustrated  by  a  list  of 
the  lands  and  rents  confiscated  for  heresy  to  the  profit  of  Philippe  de  Montfort 
from  his  vassals.  It  embraces  fiefs  and  other  properties  in  Lautrec,  Montredon, 
Senegats,  Rabastain,  and  Lavaur.  The  knights  and  gentlemen  and  peasants 
thus  stripped  are  all  named,  with  their  offences — one  died  a  heretic,  another  was 
hereticatcd  on  his  death-bed,  a  third  was  condemned  for  heresy,  and  a  fourth 


112  LANGUEDOC. 

The  rich  bourgeoisie  of  the  cities  were  ruined  in  the  same  way. 
Some  inventories  have  been  preserved  of  the  goods  and  chattels 
sequestrated  when  the  arrests  were  made  at  Albi  in  1299  and 
1300,  which  show  how  thoroughly  everything  was  swept  into  the 
maelstrom.  That  of  Raymond  Calverie,  a  notary,  gives  us  every 
detail  of  the  plenishing  of  a  well-to-do  burgher's  house — every  pil- 
low, sheet,  and  coverlet  is  enumerated,  every  article  of  kitchen 
gear,  the  salted  provisions  and  grain,  even  his  wife's  little  trin- 
kets. His  farm  or  bastide  was  subjected  to  the  same  minuteness 
of  seizure.  Then  we  have  a  similar  insight  into  the  stock  and 
goods  of  Jean  Baudier,  a  rich  merchant.  Every  fragment  of  stuff 
is  duly  measured — cloths  of  Ghent,  Ypres,  Amiens,  Cambray,  St. 
Omer,  Rouen,  Montcornet,  etc.,  with  their  valuation — pieces  of 
miniver,  and  other  articles  of  trade.  His  town  house  and  farm 
were  inventoried  with  the  same  conscientious  care.  It  is  easy  to 
see  how  prosperous  cities  were  reduced  to  poverty,  how  industry 
languished,  and  how  the  independence  of  the  municipalities  was 
broken  into  subjection  in  the  awful  uncertainty  which  hung  over 
the  head  of  every  man.* 

In  this  respect  the  Inquisition  was  building  better  than  it 
knew.  In  thus  aiding  to  establish  the  royal  power  over  the  new- 
ly-acquired provinces,  it  was  contributing  to  erect  an  authority 
which  was  destined  in  the  end  to  reduce  it  to  comparative  insig- 
nificance. With  the  disappearance  of  Catharism,  Languedoc  be- 
came as  much  a  part  of  the  monarchy  as  I'lsle  de  France,  and  the 
career  of  its  Inquisition  merges  into  that  of  the  rest  of  the  king- 
dom.    It  need  not,  therefore,  be  pursued  separately  further. 


was  burned  at  Lavaur,  while  in  other  cases  the  mother,  or  the  father,  or  both 
were  heretics  (Doat,  XXXII.  258-63). 

Many  examples  of  donations  and  sales  are  preserved  in  the  Doat  collection. 
I  may  instance  T.  XXXI.  foL  171,  237,  255 ;  T.  XXXII.  fol.  46,  53,  55,  57,  64,  67, 
69,  244,  etc. 

In  the  possessions  of  the  English  crown  in  Aquitaine  tlie  same  process  was 
going  on,  though  in  a  minor  degree  (Rymer,  Fcedera,  III.  408). 

•  Coll.  Doat,  XXXII.  309,  316. 


CHAPTER  11. 

FRANCE. 

Although  Catharism  never  obtained  in  the  Worth  sufficient  foot- 
hold to  render  it  threatening  to  the  Church,  yet  the  crusades  and 
the  efforts  which  followed  the  pacification  of  1229  must  have 
driven  many  heretics  to  seek  refuge  in  places  where  they  might 
escape  suspicion.  In  organizing  persecution  in  the  South,  there- 
fore, it  was  necessary  to  provide  some  supervision  more  watchful 
than  episcopal  negligence  was  likely  to  supply,  over  the  regions 
whither  heretics  might  fly  when  pursued  at  home,  or  the  efforts 
made  in  Languedoc  would  only  be  scattering  the  infection.  Vigi- 
lant guardians  of  the  faith  were  consequently  requisite  in  lands 
where  heretics  were  few  and  hidden,  as  well  as  in  those  where  they 
were  numerous  and  enjoyed  protection  from  noble  and  city.  Under 
the  pious  king,  St.  Louis,  who  declared  that  the  only  argument  a 
layman  could  use  with  a  heretic  was  to  thrust  a  sword  into  him 
up  to  the  hilt,  they  were  sure  of  ample  support  from  the  secular 
power.* 

Accordingly  when,  in  1233,  the  experiment  was  tried  of  ap- 
pointing Pierre  Cella  and  Guillem  Arnaud  as  inquisitors  in  Tou- 
louse, a  similar  tentative  effort  was  made  in  the  northern  ]')art  of 
tlie  kingdom.  Here  also  it  was  the  Dominican  Order  which  was 
called  upon  to  furnish  the  necessary  zealots.  I  have  already  al- 
luded to  the  failure  of  the  attempt  to  induce  the  Friars  of  Franche- 
Comte  to  undertake  the  work.  In  western  Burgundy,  however, 
the  Church  was  more  fortunate  in  finding  a  proper  instrument. 
Like  Rainerio  Saccone,  Frere  Robert,  known  as  le  Biigrc,  had  been 
a  Patarin.  The  peculiar  fitness  thence  derived  for  detecting  the 
hidden  heretic  was  rendered  still  more  effective  by  the  special 
gift  which  he  is  said  to  have  claimed,  of  being  able  to  recognize 


•  Joinvillc,  P.  I.  (Ed.  1785,  p.  23). 
II.— 8 


1  I-i  FRANCE. 

them  by  their  speech  and  carriage.  Tn  addition,  he  was  fitted  for 
the  work  by  the  ardent  fanaticism  of  the  convert,  by  his  learning, 
liis  fiery  eloquence,  and  his  mercilessness.  AVhen,  early  in  1233, 
instructions  to  persecute  heresy  were  sent  to  the  Prior  of  Besan^on, 
Robert  was  nominated  to  represent  him  and  act  as  his  substitute ; 
and,  eager  to  manifest  his  zeal,  he  lost  no  time  in  making  a  de- 
scent upon  La  Charite.  It  w411  be  remembered  that  this  place  was 
notorious  as  a  centre  of  heresy  in  the  twelfth  centur}'-,  and  that  re- 
peated efforts  had  been  made  to  purify  it.  These  had  proved  fruit- 
less against  the  stubbornness  of  the  misbelievers,  and  Frere  Robert 
found  Stephen,  the  Cluniac  prior,  vainly  endeavoring  to  win  or 
force  them  over.  The  new  inquisitor  seems  to  have  been  armed 
with  no  special  powers,  but  his  energy  speedily  made  a  profound 
impression,  and  heretics  came  forward  and  confessed  their  errors 
in  crowds,  husbands  and  wives,  parents  and  children,  accusing 
themselves  and  each  other  without  reserve.  He  reported  to  Greg- 
ory IX.  that  the  reality  was  far  worse  than  had  been  rumored ; 
that  the  whole  town  was  a  stinking  nest  of  heretical  wickedness, 
where  the  Catholic  faith  was  almost  Avholly  set  aside  and  the  peo- 
ple in  their  secret  conventicles  had  throAvn  off  its  yoke.  Under  a 
specious  appearance  of  piety  they  deceived  the  wisest,  and  their 
earnest  missionary  efforts,  extending  over  the  whole  of  France, 
were  seducing  souls  from  Flanders  to  Britanny.  Uncertain  as  to 
his  authority,  he  applied  to  Gregory  for  instructions  and  was  told 
to  act  energetically  in  conjunction  with  the  bishops,  and,  under  the 
statutes  recently  issued  by  the  Holy  See,  to  extirpate  heresy  thor- 
oughly from  the  whole  region,  invoking  the  aid  of  the  secular  arm, 
and  coercing  it  if  necessary  with  the  censures  of  the  Church.* 

We  have  no  means  of  knowing  what  measures  Robert  adopted, 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  under  this  stimulus,  and  clothed 
with  tliis  authority,  he  was  active  and  unsparing.  His  crazy  fanati- 
cism probably  exaggerated  greatly  the  extent  of  the  evil  and  con- 
founded the  innocent  with  the  guilty.  It  was  not  long  before  the 
Archbishop  of  Sens,  in  whose  province  La  Charite  lay,  expostu- 
lated with  Gregory  upon  this  interference  with  his  jurisdiction, 
and  in  this  he  was  joined  by  other  prelates,  alarmed  at  the  au- 


*  Alberic.  Triuiii  Font.  Cliron.  ann.  1336.— Grcgor.  PP.  IX.  Bull.  Gaudemus^ 
19  Ap.  1233  (Ripoll  I.  45-6).— Rayuald.  ann.  1233,  No.  59. 


ROBERT    LE    BUGRE.  115 

thority  given  to  the  Dominican  Provincial  of  Paris  to  appoint  in- 
quisitors for  all  portions  of  the  kingdom.  They  assured  the  pope 
that  there  was  no  heresy  in  their  provinces  and  no  necessity  for 
these  extraordinary  measures.  Gregory  thereupon  revoked  all 
commissions  early  in  February,  1234,  and  urged  the  prelates  to  bo 
vigilant,  recommending  them  to  make  use  of  Dominicans  in  all 
cases  where  action  appeared  desirable,  as  the  friars  were  specially 
skilled  in  the  refutation  of  heresy.  Had  Robert  been  an  ordinary 
man  this  might  have  postponed  for  some  time  the  extension  of  the 
Inquisition  in  France,  but  he  was  too  ardent  to  be  repressed.  In 
June,  1234,  we  find  St.  Louis  paying  for  the  maintenance  of  heretics 
in  prison  at  St.  Pierre-le-Moutier,  near  Nevers,  which  would  seem 
as  though  Frere  Robert  had  succeeded  in  getting  to  work  again 
on  his  old  field  of  operations.  Meanwhile  he  had  not  been  idle 
elsewhere.  King  Louis  furnished  him  with  an  armed  guard  to 
protect  him  from  the  enmities  which  he  aroused,  and,  secure  in  the 
royal  favor,  he  traversed  the  country  carrying  terror  everywhere. 
At  Peronne  he  burned  five  victims ;  at  Elincourt,  four,  besides 
a  pregnant  woman  who  was  spared  for  a  time  at  the  intercession 
of  the  queen.  His  methods  were  speedy,  for  before  Lent  was  out 
we  find  him  at  Caml)rai,  where,  with  the  assistance  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Reims  and  three  bishops,  he  burned  about  twenty  and 
condemned  others  to  crosses  and  prison.  Thence  he  hastened  to 
Douai,  where,  in  May,  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  burning  ten  more, 
and  condemning  numerous  others  to  crosses  and  prison  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Count  of  Flanders,  the  Archbishop  of  Reims,  sundry 
bishops  and  an  immense  multitude  who  crowded  to  the  spectacle. 
Thence  he  hurried  to  Lille,  where  more  executions  followed.  All 
this  was  sufficient  to  convince  Gregory  that  he  had  been  misin- 
formed as  to  the  absence  of  heresy.  Undisturbed  by  the  severe 
experience  which  he  had  just  undergone  with  a  similar  apostle  of 
persecution,  Conrad  of  Marburg,  we  find  him,  in  August,  1235,  ex- 
citedly announcing  to  the  Dominican  provincial  that  God  had  re- 
vealed to  him  that  the  whole  of  France  was  boiling  with  the  venom 
of  heretical  reptiles,  and  that  the  business  of  the  Inquisition  must 
be  resumed  with  loosened  rein.  Frere  Robert  was  to  be  commis- 
sioned again,  with  fitting  colleagues  to  scour  the  Avhole  kingdom, 
aided  by  the  prelates,  so  that  innocence  should  not  suffer  nor  guilt 
escape.     The  Archbishop  of  Sens  was  strictly  ordered  to  lend  effi- 


IIG  FRANCE. 

cient  help  to  Robert,  whom  God  had  gifted  with  especial  grace  in 
these  matters,  and  Robert  himself  was  honored  with  a  special  papal 
commission  empowering  him  to  act  throughout  the  whole  of  France. 
The  pope,  moreover,  spurred  him  on  with  exhortations  to  spare  no 
labor  in  the  work,  and  not  to  shrink  from  martyrdom  if  necessary 
for  the  salvation  of  souls.* 

This  was  pouring  oil  upon  the  flames.  Robert's  untempered 
fanaticism  had  required  no  stimulus,  and  now  it  raged  beyond  all 
bounds.  The  kingdom,  by  Gregory's  thoughtless  zeal,  was  delivered 
up  to  one  who  was  little  better  than  a  madman.  Supported  by 
the  piety  of  St.  Louis,  the  prelates  were  obliged  to  aid  him  and 
carry  out  his  behests,  and  for  several  years  he  traversed  the  prov- 
inces of  Flanders,  Champagne,  Burgundy,  and  France  with  none  to 
curb  or  oppose  him.  The  crazy  ardor  of  such  a  man  was  not  hke- 
ly  to  be  discriminating  or  to  require  much  proof  of  guilt.  Those 
whom  he  designated  as  heretics  had  the  alternative  of  abjuration 
with  perpetual  imprisonment  or  of  the  stake — varied  occasionally 
with  burial  alive.  In  one  term  of  two  or  three  months  he  is  said 
to  have  thus  despatched  about  fifty  unfortunates  of  either  sex,  and 
the  whole  number  of  his  victims  during  his  unchecked  career  of 
several  years  must  have  been  large.  The  terror  spread  by  his  ar- 
bitrary and  pitiless  proceedings  rendered  him  formidable  to  high 
and  low  ahke,  until  at  length  the  evident  confounding  of  the  in- 
nocent with  the  guilty  raised  a  clamor  to  which  even  Gregory  IX. 
was  forced  to  listen.  An  investigation  was  held  in  1238  which 
exposed  his  misdeeds,  though  not  before  he  had  time,  in  1239,  to 
burn  a  number  of  heretics  at  Montmorillon  in  Vienne,  and  twenty- 
seven,  or,  according  to  other  accounts,  one  hundred  and  eighty-three, 
at  Mont-Wimer — the  original  seat  of  Catharism  in  the  eleventh 
century — where,  at  this  holocaust  pleasing  to  God,  there  were  pres- 
ent the  King  of  Navarre  with  a  crowd  of  prelates  and  nobles  and 
a  multitude  wildly  estimated  at  seven  hundred  thousand  souls. 
Robert's  commission  was  withdrawn,  and  he  expiated  his  insane 
cruelties  in  perpetual  prison.     The  case  ought  to  have  proved,  like 

*  Greg.  PP.  IX.  Bull.  Olim,  4  Feb.  1234 ;  Ejusd.  Bull.  Di/dinn,  21  Aug.  1335; 
Ejusd.  Bull.  Quo  inter  mteras,  22  Aug.  1235  ;  Ejusd.  Bull.  Diuhan,  23  Aug.  1235 
(Ripoll  I.  80-1).— Potthast  No.  9386.— Chron.  breve  Lobieus.  ann.  1235  (Marteue 
Thes.  III.  1427).— D.  Bouquet,  XXII.  570.— Chron.  Rim6e  de  Philippe  Mousket, 
V.  28871-29025.— Alberic.  Trium  Font.  ann.  1235. 


THE    INQUISITION    ESTABLISHED.  117 

that  of  Conrad  of  Marburg,  a  wholesome  warning.  Unfortunately 
tlie  spirit  which  he  had  aroused  survived  him,  and  for  three  or 
four  years  after  his  fall  active  persecution  raged  from  the  Rhine 
to  the  Loire,  under  the  belief  that  the  land  was  full  of  heretics.* 

The  unlucky  termination  of  Robert's  career  did  not  affect  his 
colleagues,  and  thenceforth  the  Inquisition  was  permanently  estab- 
lished throughout  France  in  Dominican  hands.  The  prelates  at 
first  were  stimulated  to  some  show  of  rivalry  in  the  performance 
of  their  neglected  duties.  Thus  the  provincial  council  of  Tours,  in 
1239,  endeavored  to  revive  the  forgotten  system  of  synodal  wit- 
nesses. Every  bishop  was  instructed  to  appoint  in  each  parish 
three  clerks — or,  if  such  could  not  be  had,  three  laymen  worthy  of 
trust — who  were  to  be  sworn  to  reveal  to  the  officials  all  ecclesi- 
astical offences,  especially  those  concerning  the  faith.  Such  de- 
vices, however,  were  too  cumbrous  and  obsolete  to  be  of  any  avail 
against  a  crime  so  sedulously  and  so  easily  concealed  as  heresy, 
even  if  the  prelates  had  been  zealous  and  earnest  persecutors.  The 
Dominicans  remained  undisputed  masters  of  the  field,  always  on 
the  alert,  travelling  from  place  to  place,  scrutinizing  and  question- 
ing, searching  the  truth  and  dragging  it  from  unwilling  hearts. 
Yet  scarce  a  trace  of  tlieir  strenuous  labors  has  been  left  to  us. 
Heretics  throughout  the  North  were  comparatively  few  and  scat- 
tered ;  the  chroniclers  of  the  period  take  no  note  of  their  discovery 
and  punishment,  nor  even  of  the  establishment  of  the  Inquisition 
itself.  That  a  few  friars  should  be  deputed  to  the  duty  of  hunt- 
ing heretics  was  too  unimpressive  a  fact  to  be  worthy  of  record. 
"We  know,  however,  that  the  pious  King  Louis  welcomed  them  in 
his  old  hereditary  dominions,  as  he  did  in  the  newly-acquired  ter- 
ritories of  Languedoc,  and  stimulated  their  zeal  by  defraying  their 
expenses.    In  the  accounts  of  the  royal  bailhs  for  1248  we  find  en- 


*  Chron.  S.  Medardi  Suessionens.  (D'Achery,  II.  491).— Cone.  Trevirens.  ann. 
1238,  c.  31  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VII.  130).— Wadding.  Annal.  ann.  123G,  No.  3.— 
MejuTi  Annal.  Flandrens.  Lib.  viri.  ann.  12:30.— Raynald.  ann.  1238,  No.  52.— Matt. 
Paris  ann.  1236,  1238,  pp.  293,  326  (Ed.  1644).— Chron.  Gaufridi  de  Collonc  ann. 
1239  (Bouquet,  XXIL  3).— Alberic.  Trium  Font.  Chron.  ann.  1239.— Chron.  Rim6e 
de  Phil,  de  Mousket,  v.  30525-34. 

Frcire  Bremond  endeavors  to  clear  Robert's  fame  from  the  accusations  brought 
against  him  by  Matthew  Paris,  and  states  that  he  died  in  the  convent  of  St. 
Jacques  in  Paris  in  1235. 


118  FRANCE. 

tries  of  sums  disbursed  for  them  in  Paris,  Orleans,  Tssoudun,  Sen- 
lis,  Amiens,  Tours,  Yevre  -  le  -  Chatel,  Beaumont,  St.  Quentin,  Laon, 
and  Macon,  showing  that  his  hberahty  furnished  them  with  means 
to  do  their  work,  not  only  in  the  domains  of  the  crown,  but  in 
those  of  the  great  vassals ;  and  these  items  further  illustrate  their 
activity  in  every  corner  of  the  land.  That  their  sharp  pursuit 
rendered  heresy  unsafe  is  seen  in  the  permission  already  alluded 
to,  in  1255,  to  pursue  their  quarry  across  the  border  into  the  ter- 
ritories of  Alphonse  of  Toulouse,  thus  disregarding  the  limitations 
of  inquisitorial  districts.* 

This  shows  us  that  already  the  Inquisition  was  becoming  or- 
ganized in  a  systematic  manner.  In  Provence,  w^here  Pons  de 
I'Esparre,  the  Dominican  prior,  had  at  first  carried  on  a  kind  of  vol- 
unteer chase  after  heretics,  we  see  an  inquisitor  officially  acting  in 
1245.  This  district,  comprising  the  whole  southeastern  portion  of 
modern  France,  with  Savoy,  was  confided  to  the  Franciscans.  In 
1266,  when  they  were  engaged  in  Marseilles  in  mortal  strife  with 
fhe  Dominicans,  the  business  of  persecution  would  seem  to  have 
been  neglected,  for  we  find  Clement  IV.  ordering  the  Benedictines 
01  St.  Victor  to  make  provision  for  extirpating  the  numerous  here- 
tics of  the  valley  of  Kousset,  where  they  had  a  dependency.  The 
Inquisition  of  Provence  was  extended  in  1288  over  Avignon  and 
the  Comtat  Venaissin,  whose  governor  was  ordered  to  defray  from 
the  confiscations  the  moderate  expenses  of  the  inquisitors,  Bertrand 
de  Cigotier  and  Guillem  de  Saint-Marcel.  In  1292  Dauphine  was 
likewise  included,  thus  completing  the  organization  in  the  terri- 
tories east  of  the  Rhone.  The  attention  of  the  inquisitors  was 
specially  called  to  the  superstition  which  led  many  Christians  to 
frequent  the  Jewish  synagogues  with  lighted  candles,  offering  ob- 
lations and  watching  through  the  vigils  of  the  Sabbath,  when  af- 
flicted with  sickness  or  other  tribulations,  anxious  for  friends  at 
sea  or  for  approaching  childbirth.  AU  such  observances,  even  in 
Jews,  were  idolatry  and  heresy,  and  those  who  practised  them  were 
to  be  duly  prosecuted.f 


*  Concil.  Turonens.  ann.  1239,  c.  1.— D.  Bouquet,  XXI.  262,  264,  268,  278,  274, 
276,  280,  281.— RipoU  I.  273-4. 

t  Coll.  Doat,  XXXI.  68.— M.irtene  Coll.  Ampl.  1. 1284.— Wadding.  Annal.  ann. 
1288,  No.  14, 15 ;  ann.  1290,  No.  3,  5,  6  ;  ann.  1292,  No.  3. 


ORGANIZATION.  II9 

With  this  exception  the  whole  of  France  was  confided  to  the 
Dominicans.  In  1253  a  bull  of  Innocent  IV.  renders  the  Provin 
cial  of  Paris  supreme  over  the  rest  of  the  kingdom,  including  the 
territories  of  Alphonse  of  Toulouse.  Numerous  buUs  foUow  during 
the  next  few  years  which  speak  of  the  growth  of  heresy  requiring 
increased  efforts  for  its  suppression  and  of  the  solicitude  of  King 
Louis  that  the  Inquisition  should  be  effective.  Elaborate  instruc- 
tions are  sent  for  its  management,  and  various  changes  are  made 
and  unmade  in  a  manner  to  show  that  a  watchful  eye  was  kept  on 
the  institution  in  France,  and  that  there  was  a  constant  effort  to 
render  it  as  efficient  as  possible.  By  a  papal  brief  of  1255  we  see 
that  at  that  time  the  Inquisition  of  Languedoc  was  independent 
of  the  Paris  provincial ;  in  1257  it  is  again  under  his  authority  ; 
in  1261  it  is  once  more  removed,  and  in  1264  it  is  restored  to  him — 
a  provision  which  became  final,  rendering  him  in  some  sort  a  grand- 
inquisitor  for  the  whole  of  France.  In  1255  the  Franciscan  pro- 
vincial was  adjoined  to  the  Dominican,  thus  dividing  the  functions 
between  the  two  Orders ;  but  this  arrangement,  as  might  be  ex- 
pected, does  not  seem  to  have  worked  weU,  and  in  1256  Ave  find 
the  power  again  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  the  Dominicans. 
The  number  of  inquisitors  to  be  appointed  was  always  strictly 
limited  by  the  popes,  and  it  varied  with  the  apparent  exigencies 
of  the  times  and  also  with  the  extent  of  territory.  In  1256  only 
two  are  specified ;  in  1258  this  is  pronounced  insufficient  for  so 
extensive  a  region,  and  the  provincial  is  empowered  to  appoint 
four  more.  In  1261,  when  Languedoc  was  withdrawn,  the  num- 
ber is  reduced  to  two;  in  1266  it  is  increased  to  four,  exclusive  of 
Languedoc  and  Provence,  to  whom  in  1267  associates  were  ad- 
joined, and  in  1273  the  number  was  made  six,  including  Langue- 
doc, but  excluding  Provence.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  final 
organization,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  the  Northern  kingdom 
was  divided  into  districts,  strictly  dehmitated  as  those  of  the 
South.* 

The  Inquisition  at  Besangon  appears  to  have  been  at  first  in- 


*  Arch,  de  I'Inq.  de  Care.  (Doat.  XXXI.  90 ;  XXXII.  41).— Wadding.  Annal. 
ann.  1255,  No.  14.— Raynald.  ann.  1255,  No.  33.— Arch.  Nat.  de  France,  J.  431, 
No.  30,  31,  34,  35,  36.— Ripoll  I.  273-4,  291,  362,472,  512 ;  II.  29.— MSS.  Bib.  Nat., 
fends  latin.  No.  149:50,  fol.  226.— Martene  Thesaur.  V-  1814,  1817. 


120  FRANCE. 

dependent  of  that  of  Paris.  After  the  failure  to  estabhsh  it  in 
1233  it  seems  to  have  remained  in  abeyance  until  1247,  when  Inno- 
cent lY.  ordered  the  Prior  of  Bcsanyon  to  send  friars  throughout 
Burgundy  and  Lorraine  for  the  extirpation  of  heresy.  The  next 
year  John  Count  of  Burgundy  urged  greater  activity,  but  his  zeal 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  supplemented  with  liberality,  and  in 
1255  the  Dominicans  asked  to  be  relieved  of  the  thankless  task, 
which  proved  unsuccessful  for  lack  of  funds,  and  Alexander  IV. 
acceded  to  their  request.  There  are  some  evidences  of  an  Inquisi- 
tion being  in  operation  there  about  1283,  and  in  1290  Nicholas  IV. 
ordered  the  Provincial  of  Paris  to  select  three  inquisitors  to  serve 
in  the  dioceses  of  Besaneon,  Geneva,  Lausanne,  Sion,  Metz,  Toul, 
and  Verdun,  thus  placing  Lorraine  and  the  French  Cantons  of 
Switzerland,  as  well  as  Franche  Comte,  under  the  Inquisition  of 
France,  an  arrangement  wliich  seems  to  have  lasted  for  more  than 
a  century.'^ 

Little  remains  to  us  of  the  organization  thus  perfected  over  the 
wide  territory  stretching  from  the  Bay  of  Biscay  to  the  Rhine. 
The  laborers  were  vigorous,  and  labored  according  to  the  light 
which  was  in  them,  but  the  men  and  their  acts  are  buried  beneath 
the  dust  of  the  forgotten  past.  That  they  did  their  duty  is  visible 
in  the  fact  that  heresy  makes  so  little  figure  in  France,  and  that 
the  slow  but  remorseless  extermination  of  Catharism  in  Langue- 
doc  was  not  accompanied  by  its  perpetuation  in  the  North.  "We 
hear  constantly  of  refugees  from  Toulouse  and  Carcassonne  flpng 
for  safety  to  Lombardy  and  even  to  Sicily,  but  never  to  Touraine 
or  Champagne,  nor  do  we  ever  meet  with  cases  in  which  the 
earnest  missionaries  of  Catharism  sought  converts  beyond  the 
Cevennes.  This  may  fairly  be  ascribed  to  the  vigilance  of  the 
inquisitors,  who  were  ever  on  the  watch.  Chance  has  preserved 
for  us  as  models  in  a  book  of  formulas  some  documents  issued  by 
Frere  Simon  Duval,  in  1277  and  1278,  which  afford  us  a  momen- 
tary glimpse  at  his  proceedings  and  enable  us  to  estimate  the  activ- 
ity requisite  for  the  functions  of  his  office.  He  styles  himself 
inquisitor  "  in  regno  Francm^''  which  indicates  that  his  commis- 
sion extended  throughout  the  kingdom  north  of  Languedoc,  and 


*  RipoU  I.  179,  183;  II.  29.— Potthast  No.  15995.— Lib.  Sentt.  Inq.  Tolos. 
pp.  252-4. 


ACTIVITY    OF    INQUISITION.  121 

he  speaks  of  himself  as  acting  in  virtue  of  the  apostolical  author- 
ity and  royal  power,  showing  that  Philippe  le  Ilardi  had  dutifully 
commissioned  him  to  smnmon  the  whole  forces  of  the  State  to  his 
assistance  Avhen  requisite.  November  23,  1277,  he  gives  pubhc 
notice  that  two  canons  of  Liege,  Suger  de  Yerbanque  and  Berner 
de  Niville,  had  fled  on  being  suspected  of  heresy,  and  he  cites  them 
to  appear  for  trial  at  St.  Quentin  in  Vermandois  on  the  23d  of 
the  ensuing  January,  This  trial  was  apparently  postponed,  for 
on  January  21, 1278,  we  find  him  summoning  the  people  and  clergy 
of  Caen  to  attend  his  sermon  on  the  23d.  Here  he  at  least  found 
an  apostate  Jewess  who  fled,  and  we  have  his  proclamation  calling 
upon  every  one  to  aid  Copin,  sergeant  of  the  Bailli  of  Caen,  who 
had  been  despatched  in  her  pursuit.  Frere  Duval  was  apparently 
making  an  extended  inquest,  for  July  5  he  summons  the  people 
and  clergy  of  Orleans  to  attend  his  sermon  on  the  7th.  A  fort- 
night later  he  is  back  in  Normandy  and  has  discovered  a  nest  of 
heretics  near  Evreux,  for  on  July  21  we  have  his  citation  of  thir- 
teen persons  from  a  little  village  hard  by  to  appear  before  him. 
These  fragmentary  and  accidental  remains  show  that  his  life  was 
a  busy  one  and  that  his  labors  were  not  unfruitful.  A  letter  of 
the  young  Philippe  le  Bel,  in  February,  1285,  to  his  officials  in 
Champagne  and  Brie,  ordering  them  to  lend  all  aid  to  the  inquis- 
itor Frere  Guillaume  d'Auxerre,  indicates  that  those  provinces 
were  about  to  undergo  a  searching  examination.* 

The  inquisitors  of  France  complained  that  their  work  was  im- 
peded by  the  universal  right  of  asylum  which  gave  protection  to 
criminals  who  succeeded  in  entering  a  church.  No  officer  of  the 
law  dared  to  follow  and  make  an  arrest  within  the  sacred  walls, 
for  a  violation  of  this  privilege  entailed  excommunication,  remov- 
able only  after  exemplary  punishment.  Heretics  were  not  slow 
in  availing  themselves  of  the  immunity  thus  mercifully  afforded 
by  the  Church  which  they  had  wronged,  and  in  the  jealousy  which 
existed  between  the  secular  clergy  and  the  inquisitors  there  was 
apparently  no  effort  made  to  restrict  the  abuse.  Martin  TV.  was 
accordingly  appealed  to,  and  in  1281  he  issued  a  bull  addressed  to 
all  the  prelates  of  France,  declaring  that  such  perversion  of  the 


"  Martene  Thesaur.  V.  1809,   1811-13.— Arch,  de  ITnq.  de  Carcass.  (Doat, 
XXXII.  127). 


122  FRANCE. 

right  of  asylum  was  no  longer  to  be  permitted ;  that  in  such  cases 
the  inquisitors  Avere  to  have  full  op]iortunity  to  vindicate  the  faith, 
and  that  so  far  from  being  imjiedcd  in  the  performance  of  their 
duty,  they  were  to  be  aided  in  every  way.  The  special  mention  in 
this  bull  of  apostate  Jews  along  with  other  heretics  indicates  that 
this  unfortunate  class  formed  a  notable  portion  of  the  objects  of 
inquisitorial  zeal.  Several  of  them,  in  fact,  were  burned  or  other- 
wise penanced  in  Paris  between  1307  and  1310,  * 

There  was  one  class  of  offenders  who  would  liave  afforded  the 
Inquisition  an  ample  field  for  its  activity,  had  it  been  dis])osed  to 
take  cognizance  of  them.  By  the  canons,  any  one  who  had  en- 
dured excommunication  for  a  year  without  submission  and  seeking 
absolution  was  pronounced  suspect  of  heresy,  and  we  have  seen 
Boniface  YIII.,  in  1297,  directing  the  inquisitors  of  Carcassonne  to 
prosecute  the  authorities  of  Beziers  for  this  cause.  The  land  was 
full  of  such  excommunicates,  for  the  shocking  abuse  of  the  anath- 
ema by  priest  and  prelate  for  personal  interests  had  indurated  the 
people,  and  in  a  countless  number  of  cases  absolution  was  only  to 
be  procured  by  the  sacrifice  of  rights  which  even  faithful  sons  of 
the  Church  were  not  prepared  to  make.  This  growing  disregard 
of  the  censure  was  aggravating  to  the  last  degree,  but  the  inquisi- 
tors do  not  seem  to  have  been  disposed  to  come  forward  in  aid  of 
the  secular  clergy,  nor  did  the  latter  call  upon  them  for  assistance. 
In  1301  the  Council  of  Reims  directed  that  proceedings  should  be 
commenced,  when  it  next  should  meet,  against  all  who  had  been 
under  excommunication  for  two  years,  as  being  suspect  of  heresy ; 
and  in  1303  it  called  upon  all  such  to  come  forward  and  purge 
themselves  of  the  suspicion,  but  the  court  in  which  this  was  to  be 
done  was  that  of  the  bishops  and  not  of  the  Inquisition.  Mutual 
jealousy  was  seemingly  too  strong  to  admit  of  such  co-operation.f 

In  1308  we  hear  of  a  certain  fitienne  de  Yerberie  of  Soissons, 
accused  before  the  inquisitor  of  blasphemous  expressions  concern- 
ing the  body  of  Christ.  He  alleged  drunkenness  in  excuse,  and 
was  mercifully  treated.      Shortly  afterwards  occurred  the  first 


•  Ripoll  II.  1.— Guill.  Nangiac.  Contin.  ann.  1307,  1310. 
t  Martene  Ampl.  Collect.  VII.  1335-7.     Ci'.  Concil.  Trident,  Sess.  xxv.  Do- 
cret.  Reform,  c.  3. 


MxVRGUERITE    LA    PORETE.  123 

formal  auto  defe  of  which  we  have  cognizance  at  Paris,  on  May 
31,  1310.  A  renegade  Jew  was  burned,  but  the  principal  victim 
was  Marguerite  de  Hainault,  or  la  Porete.  She  is  described  as  a 
"  heguvne  dergesse,^^  the  first  apostle  in  France  of  the  German  sect 
of  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit,  whom  we  shall  consider  more  fully 
hereafter.  Her  chief  error  was  the  doctrine  that  the  soul,  absorbed 
in  Divine  love,  could  yield  without  sin  or  remorse  to  all  the  de- 
mands of  the  flesh,  and  she  regarded  with  insufficient  veneration 
the  sacrifice  of  the  altar.  She  had  written  a  book  to  propagate 
these  doctrines  which  had,  before  the  year  1305,  been  condemned 
as  heretical  and  burned  by  Gui  IL,  Bishop  of  Cambrai.  He  had 
mercifully  spared  her,  while  forbidding  her  under  pain  of  the  stake 
from  circulating  it  in  future  or  disseminating  its  doctrines.  In 
spite  of  this  she  had  again  been  brought  before  Gui's  successor, 
Philippe  de  Marigny,  and  the  Inquisitor  of  Lorraine,  for  spreading 
it  among  the  simple  folk  called  Begghards,  and  she  had  again 
escaped.  Unwearied  in  her  missionary  work,  she  had  even  ven- 
tured to  present  the  forbidden  volume  to  Jean,  Bishop  of  Chalons, 
without  suffering  the  penalty  due  to  her  obstinacy.  In  1308  she 
extended  her  propaganda  to  Paris  and  fell  into  the  hands  of  Frere 
Guillaume  de  Paris,  the  inquisitor,  before  whom  she  persistently 
refused  to  take  the  preliminary  oath  requisite  to  her  examination. 
He  was  probably  too  preoccupied  with  the  affair  of  the  Templars 
to  give  her  prompt  justice,  and  for  eighteen  months  she  lay  in 
the  inquisitorial  dungeons  under  the  consequent  excommunication. 
This  would  alone  have  sufficed  for  her  conviction  as  an  impenitent 
heretic,  but  her  previous  career  rendered  her  a  relapsed  heretic. 
Instead  of  calling  an  assembly  of  experts,  as  was  customary  in 
Languedoc,  the  inquisitor  laid  a  written  statement  of  the  case  be- 
fore the  canonists  of  the  University,  who  unanimously  decided, 
May  30,  that  if  the  facts  as  stated  were  true,  she  was  a  relapsed 
heretic,  to  be  relaxed  to  the  secular  arm.  Accordingly,  on  May 
31,  she  was  handed  over,  with  the  customary  adjuration  for  mercj'-, 
to  the  prevot  of  Paris,  who  duly  burned  her  the  next  day,  when 
her  noble  manifestation  of  devotion  moved  the  people  to  tears  of 
compassion.  Another  actor  in  the  tragedy  was  a  disciple  of  Mar- 
guerite, a  clerk  of  the  diocese  of  Beauvais  named  Guion  de  Cres- 
sonessart.  He  liad  endeavored  to  save  INIarguerite  from  the 
clutches  of  the  Inquisition,  and  on  being  seized  had,  like  her, 


124  FRANCE. 

refused  to  take  the  oath  during  eighteen  months'  imprisonment. 
His  brain  seems  to  have  turned  during  his  detention,  for  at  length 
he  astonished  the  inquisitor  by  proclaiming  himself  the  Angel  of 
Philadelphia  and  an  envoy  of  God,  who  alone  could  save  mankind. 
The  inquisitor  in  vain  pointed  out  that  this  was  a  function  reserved 
solely  for  the  pope,  and  as  Guion  would  not  withdraw  his  claims 
he  was  convicted  as  a  heretic.  For  some  reason,  however,  not 
specified  in  the  sentence,  he  was  only  condemned  to  degradation 
from  orders  and  to  perpetual  imprisonment.* 

The  next  case  of  which  we  hear  is  that  of  the  Sieur  de  Partenay, 
in  1323,  to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made.  Its  importance 
to  us  lies  in  its  revealing  the  enormous  and  almost  irresponsible 
authority  wielded  by  the  Inquisition  at  this  period.  The  most 
powerful  noble  of  Poitou,  when  designated  as  a  heretic  by  Frere 
Maurice,  the  Inquisitor  of  Paris,  is  at  once  thrown  into  the  prison 
of  the  Temple  by  the  king,  and  all  his  estates  are  sequestrated  to 
await  the  result.  Fortunately  for  Partenay  he  had  a  large  circle 
of  influential  friends  and  kindred,  among  them  the  Bishop  of  Noy- 
on,  who  labored  strenuously  in  his  behalf.  He  was  able  to  appeal 
to  the  pope,  alleging  personal  hatred  on  the  part  of  Frere  Maurice ; 
he  was  sent  under  guard  to  Avignon,  where  his  friends  succeeded 
in  inducing  John  XXII.  to  assign  certain  bishops  as  assessors  to 
try  the  case  with  the  inquisitor,  and  after  infinite  delays  he  was 
at  length  set  free — probably  not  without  the  use  of  means  which 
greatly  diminished  his  wealth.  When  such  a  man  could  be  so 
handled  at  the  mere  word  of  an  angry  friar,  meaner  victims  stood 
little  chance.f  This  case  in  the  North  and  the  close  of  Bernard 
Gui's  career  in  Toulouse,  about  the  same  time,  mark  the  apogee 
of  the  Inquisition  in  France.  Thenceforth  we  have  to  foUow  its 
decline. 

Yet  for  some  years  longer  there  was  a  show  of  activity  at  Car- 
cassonne, where  Henri  de  Chamay  was  a  worthy  representative  of 
the  older  inquisitors.  January  16, 1329,  in  conjunction  with  Pierre 
Bruni  he  celebrated  an  auto  de  fe  at  Pamiers,  where  thirty-five 
persons  were  permitted  to  lay  aside  crosses,  and  twelve  were  re- 

*  Arch.  Niit.  de  France,  J.  428,  No.  15,  19  J^'s.— Guillel.  Nangiac.  Contin.  ann. 
1308,  1310.— Grandes  Chroniques,  V.  188. 

t  Guillel.  Naugiac.  Contiu.  ann.  1323.— Grandes  Chroniques,  V.  273-4.— Chron. 
Johann.  S.  Victor.  Contin.  ann.  1323  (Bouquet,  XXI.  681). 


ACTIVITY    IN    LANGUEDOC.  125 

ieased  from  prison  with  crosses,  six  were  pardoned,  seven  were 
condemned  to  perpetual  imprisonment,  together  with  four  false 
witnesses,  eight  had  arbitrary  penances  assigned  them,  four  dead 
persons  were  sentenced,  and  a  friar  and  a  priest  were  degraded. 
As  the  see  of  Pamiers,  to  which  this  aitto  was  confined,  was  a  small 
one,  the  number  of  sentences  uttered  indicates  active  work.  De- 
cember 12,  of  the  same  year,  Henri  de  Chamay  held  another  at 
Narbonne,  where  the  fate  of  some  forty  dehnquents  was  decided. 
Then,  January  7,  1329,  lie  held  another  at  Pamiers ;  May  19,  one 
at  Beziers ;  September  8,  one  at  Carcassonne,  where  six  unfortu- 
nates were  burned  and  twenty-one  condemned  to  perpetual  prison. 
Shortly  afterwards  he  burned  three  at  Albi,  and  toAvards  the  end 
of  the  year  he  held  another  auto  at  a  place  not  named,  where  eight 
persons  were  sentenced  to  prison,  three  to  prison  in  chains,  and 
two  were  burned.  Some  collisions  seem  to  have  occurred  about 
this  time  with  the  royal  oiRcials,  for,  in  1334,  the  inquisitors  com- 
plained to  Phihppe  de  Valois  that  their  functions  were  impeded, 
and  Philippe  issued  orders  to  the  seneschals  of  ISTimes,  Toulouse, 
and  Carcassonne  that  the  Inquisition  must  be  maintained  in  the 
full  enjoyment  of  its  ancient  privileges.* 

Activity  continued  for  some  little  time  longer,  but  the  records 
have  perished  which  would  supply  the  details.  We  happen  to  have 
the  accounts  of  the  Senechaussee  of  Toulouse,  for  1337,  which  show 
that  Pierre  Bruni,  the  inquisitor,  was  by  no  means  idle.  The  re- 
ceiver of  confiscations  enumerates  the  estates  of  thirty  heretics  from 
which  collections  are  in  hand  ;  there  was  an  auto  defe  celebrated  and 
paid  for ;  the  number  of  prisoners  in  the  inquisitorial  jail  is  stated 
at  eighty-two,  but  as  their  maintenance  during  eleven  months 
amounted  to  the  sum  of  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  livres  four- 
teen sols,  the  average  number  at  three  deniers  per  diem  must  have 
been  ninety.  The  terrible  vicissitudes  of  the  English  war  doubt- 
less soon  afterwards  slackened  the  energy  of  the  inquisitors,  but 
we  know  that  there  were  autos  defe  celebrated  at  Carcassonne  in 
1346,  135Y,  and  1383,  and  one  at  Toulouse  in  1374.  The  office  of 
inquisitor  continued  to  be  filled,  but  its  functions  diminished  greatly 
in  importance,  as  we  may  guess  from  the  fact  that  it  is  related  of 


*  Coll.  Boat,  XXVII.  119,  132,  140,  146,  156,  178,  193,  198,  232.— Vaissette, 
IV.  Pr.  23. 


126  FRANCE. 

Pierre  de  Mcrcalme,  who  was  Provincial  of  Toulouse  from  1350  to 
1363,  that  during  more  than  two  years  of  this  period  he  also  served 
as  in(j[uisitor." 

In  the  North  we  hear  little  of  the  Inquisition  during  this 
period.  The  English  wars,  in  fact,  must  have  seriously  interfered 
with  its  activity,  but  we  have  an  evidence  that  it  was  not  neglect- 
ing its  duty  in  a  complaint  made  by  the  Provincial  of  Paris  to 
Clement  VI.,  in  1351,  that  the  practice  of  excepting  the  territories 
of  Charles  of  Anjou  from  the  commissions  issued  to  inquisitors  de- 
prived the  provinces  of  Touraine  and  Maine  of  the  blessings  of  the 
institution  and  allowed  heresy  to  flourish  there,  whereupon  the 
pope  promptly  extended  the  authority  of  Frere  GuiUaume  Chev- 
alier and  of  all  future  inquisitors  to  those  regions.f 

With  the  return  of  peace  under  Charles  le  Sage  the  Inquisition 
had  freer  scope.  The  Begghards,  or  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit, 
undeterred  by  the  martyrdom  of  Marguerite  la  Porete,  had  con- 
tinued to  exist  in  secret.  In  September,  1365,  Urban  V.  notified 
the  prelates  and  inquisitors  throughout  France  that  they  were  ac- 
tively at  work  propagating  their  doctrines,  and  he  sent  detailed 
information  as  to  their  tenets  and  the  places  where  they  were  to 
be  found  to  the  Bishop  of  Paris,  with  orders  to  communicate  it  to 
his  fellow-prelates  and  the  Inquisition.  If  any  immediate  response 
to  this  was  made,  the  result  has  not  reached  us,  but  in  1372  we 
find  Frere  Jacques  de  More,  '■'•  inquisiteur  des  Bougres,^''  busy  in 
eradicating  them.  They  called  themselves  the  Company  of  Pov- 
erty, and  were  popularly  kno\vn  by  the  name  of  Turelupins ;  as  in 
Germany,  they  were  distinguished  by  their  pecuhar  vestments,  and 
they  propagated  their  doctrines  largely  by  their  devotional  writ- 
ings in  the  vernacular  Charles  Y.  rewarded  the  labors  of  the  in- 
quisitor  with  a  donation  of  fifty  francs,  and  received  the  thanks  of 
Gregory  XL  for  his  zeal.  The  outcome  of  the  affair  was  the  burn- 
ing of  the  books  and  garments  of  the  heretics  in  the  s^vine-market 
beyond  the  Porte  Saint-Honore,  together  with  the  female  leader 
of  the  sect,  Jeanne  Daubenton.  Her  male  colleague  escaped  by 
death  in  prison,  but  his  body  was  preserved  in  quicklime  for  fif- 


*  Vaissette,  fid.  Privat,  X.  Pr.  782-3,  792,  802,  813-14.— Arch,  de  rfivechg 
d'Albi  (Boat,  XXXV.  120).— Vaissette,  IV.  184.— Marteue  Ampl.  Coll.  VI.  438. 
t  RipoU  II.  236. 


TURELUPIKS.  127 

teen  days,  in  order  that  he  might  accompany  his  partner  in  guilt 
in  the  flames.  That  such  a  spectacle  was  sufficiently  infrequent  to 
render  it  a  matter  of  importance  is  shown  by  its  being  recorded  in 
the  doggerel  of  a  contemporary  chronicler — 

"L'an  MDCCCLXXII.  je  vous  dis  tout  pour  voir 
Furent  les  Turelupins  condannez  pour  ardoir, 
Pour  ce  qu'ils  desvoient  le  peuple  a  decepvoir 
Par  feaultcs  heresies,  TEveque  en  soult  levoir." 

The  sect  was  a  stubborn  one,  however,  especially  in  Germany, 
as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  and  in  the  early  part  of  the  next  century 
Chancellor  Gerson  still  considers  it  of  sufficient  importance  to 
combat  its  errors  repeatedly.  Its  mystic  libertinism  was  danger- 
ously seducing,  and  he  was  especially  alarmed  by  the  incredible  sub- 
tlety with  which  it  was  presented  in  a  book  written  by  a  woman 
known  as  Mary  of  Valenciennes.  In  May,  1421,  twenty-five  of 
these  sectaries  were  condemned  at  Douai  by  the  Bishop  of  Arras, 
Twenty  of  them  recanted  and  were  penanced  with  crosses  and 
banishment  or  imprisonment,  but  five  were  stubborn  and  sealed 
their  faith  Avith  martyrdom  in  tlie  flames.* 

In  1381  Frere  Jacques  de  More  had  a  more  iUustrious  victim 
in  Hugues  Aubriot.  A  Burgundian  by  birth,  Aubriot's  energy 
and  ability  had  won  for  him  the  confidence  of  the  wise  King 
Charles,  who  had  made  him  Prevot  of  Paris.  This  office  he  filled 
with  unprecedented  vigor.  To  him  the  city  owed  the  first  system 
of  sewerage  that  had  been  attempted,  as  well  as  the  Bastille,  which 
he  built  as  a  bulwark  against  the  English,  and  he  imposed  some 
hmitation  on  the  flourishing  industry  of  the  filles  de  me.  His  good 
government  gained  him  the  resjiect  and  affection  of  the  people, 
but  he  made  a  mortal  enemy  of  the  University  by  disregarding 

•  Raynald.  ann.  13G5,  No.  17;  ann.  1373,  No.  19,  21.— Gaguini  Hist.  Francor. 
Lib.  IX.  c.  2.  (Ed.  1576,  p.  158).— Meyeri  Annal.  Flandr.  Lib.  xiii.  ann.  1372.— 
Du  Cange  s.  v.  Tiirlvpini.—Gers.om  de  Consolat.  Theolog.  Lib.  rv.  Prosa  3; 
Ejusd.  de  Mystica  Tlieol.  Specul.  P.  i.  Cousid.  8;  Ejusd.  de  Distinctione  verarum 
Visionum  Signuni,  5. — Altmeycr,  Prgcurseurs  de  la  Rfiforme  aux  Pays-Bas,  L  85. 

Prol)aljly  there  may  l)e  some  connection  between  the  Turehipins  and  certain 
wandering  bands  known  as  "  ^c  Pexariaclto''^  and  suspected  of  lieresy.  A  mem- 
ber of  tliese,  named  Bidon  de  Puy-Guillem,  of  tlie  diocese  of  Bordeaux,  was  con- 
demned to  perpetual  imprisonment,  and  was  liberated  by  Gregory  XL  in  1371 
(.Coll.  Doat,  XXXV.  134). 


128  FKANCE. 

the  immunities  on  the  proservation  of  which,  in  the  previous  cen- 
tury, it  had  staked  its  existence.  In  savage  mockery  of  its  wrath, 
when  building  the  Petit-Chutelet,  he  named  two  foul  dungeons 
after  two  of  the  principal  quarters  of  the  University,  le  Clos 
Bruneau  and  la  Hue  du  Foing,  saying  that  they  were  intended  for 
the  students.  Under  the  strong  rule  of  Charles  Y.  the  University 
had  to  digest  its  wrongs  as  best  it  could,  but  after  his  death,  in 
1380,  it  eagerly  watched  its  opportunity.  This  was  not  long  in 
coming,  nor,  in  the  rivalry  between  the  Dukes  of  Berri  and  Bur- 
gundy, was  it  difficult  to  enlist  the  former  against  Aubriot  as  a 
Burgundian.  The  rule  of  the  princes,  at  once  feeble  and  despotic, 
invited  disorder,  and  when  the  people,  November  25,  1380,  rose 
against  the  Jews,  pillaged  their  houses,  and  forcibly  baptized  their 
children,  Aubriot  incurred  the  implacable  enmity  of  the  Church 
by  forcing  a  restoration  of  the  infants  to  their  parents.  The  com- 
bination against  him  thus  became  too  strong  for  the  court  to  re- 
sist. It  yielded,  and  on  January  21,  1381,  he  w^as  cited  to  appear 
before  the  bishop  and  inquisitor.  He  disdained  to  obey  the  sum- 
mons, and  his  excommunication  for  contumacy  was  pubhshed  in  all 
the  churches  of  Paris.  This  compelled  obedience,  and  when  he 
came  before  the  inquisitor,  on  February  1,  he  was  at  once  thrown 
into  the  episcopal  prison  while  his  trial  proceeded.  The  charges 
were  most  frivolous,  except  the  affair  of  the  Jewish  children  and 
his  having  released  from  the  Chatelet  a  prisoner  accused  of  her- 
esy, placed  there  by  the  inquisitor.  It  was  alleged  that  on  one 
occasion  one  of  his  sergeants  had  excused  himself  for  delay  by  say- 
ing that  he  had  waited  at  church  to  see  God  (the  elevation  of  the 
Host),  when  Aubriot  angrily  rejoined,  "  Sirrah,  know  ye  not  that 
I  have  more  power  to  harm  you  than  God  to  help ;"  and  again 
that  when  some  one  had  told  him  that  they  would  see  God  in  a 
mass  celebrated  by  Silvestre  de  la  Cervelle,  Bishop  of  Coutances, 
he  replied  that  God  would  not  permit  himself  to  be  handled  by 
such  a  man  as  the  bishop.  His  enemies  were  so  exasperated  that 
on  the  strength  of  this  flimsy  gossip  he  was  actually  condemned 
to  be  burned  without  the  privilege  allowed  to  all  heretics  of  sav- 
ing himself  by  abjuration ;  but  the  princes  intervened  and  suc- 
ceeded in  obtaining  this  for  him.  He  had  no  reason  to  complain 
of  undue  delay.  On  May  17  a  solemn  auto  defe  was  held.  On  a 
scaffold  erected  in  front  of  Notre  Dame,  Aubriot  humbly  con- 


HUGUES    AUBRIOT.— THOMAS    OF    APULIA.  129 

fessed  and  recanted  the  heresies  of  which  he  had  been  convicted, 
and  received  the  sentence  of  perpetual  imprisonment,  which  of 
course  carried  with  it  the  confiscation  of  his  wealth,  while  the  re- 
joicing scholars  of  the  University  lampooned  him  in  halting  verses. 
He  was  thence  conveyed  to  a  dungeon  in  the  episcopal  prison, 
where  he  lay  until  1382,  when  the  insurrection  of  the  Maillotins 
occurred.  The  first  thought  of  the  people  was  of  their  old  prevot. 
They  broke  open  the  prison,  drew  him  forth  and  placed  him  at 
their  head.  He  accepted  the  post,  but  the  same  night  he  quietly 
withdrew  and  escaped  to  his  native  Burgundy,  where  his  advent- 
urous hfe  ended  in  peaceful  obscurity.  The  story  is  instructive 
as  showing  how  efficient  an  instrument  was  the  Inquisition  for  the 
gratification  of  mahce.  In  fact,  its  functions  as  a  factor  in  pohti- 
cal  strife  were  of  sufficient  importance  to  require  more  detailed 
consideration  hereafter.* 

After  this  we  hear  little  more  of  the  Inquisition  of  Paris,  al- 
though it  continued  to  exist.  When,  in  1388,  the  eloquence  of 
Thomas  of  Apulia  drew  wondering  crowds  to  hsten  with  venera- 
tion to  his  teaching  that  the  law  of  the  Gospel  was  simply  love, 
with  the  deduction  that  the  sacraments,  the  invocation  of  saints, 
and  all  the  inventions  of  the  current  theology  were  useless ;  when 
he  wrote  a  book  inveighing  against  the  sins  of  prelate  and  pope,  and 
asserting,  with  the  Everlasting  Gospel,  that  the  reign  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  had  supplanted  that  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  and  when  he 
boldly  announced  himself  as  the  envoy  of  the  Holy  Ghost  sent  to 
reform  the  world,  the  Inquisition  was  not  called  upon  to  silence  even 
this  revolutionary  heretic.  It  was  the  Prevot  of  Paris  who  ordered 
him  to  desist  from  preaching,  and,  when  he  refused,  it  was  the  bish- 
op and  University  who  tried  him,  ordered  his  book  to  be  burned 
on  the  Place  de  Greve,  and  would  have  him  burned  had  not  the  medi- 
cal ahenists  of  the  day  testified  to  his  insanity  and  procured  for  him 
a  commutation  of  his  punishment  to  perpetual  imprisonment,  f 

Yarious  causes  had  long  been  contributing  to  deprive  the  In- 


*  Grandes  Chroniques,  ann.  1380-1.— Religieux  de  S.  Denis,  Hist,  de  Charles 
VI.  Liv.  I.  c.  13,  liv.  II.  c.  1. 

t  Religieux  de  S.  Denis,  op.  cit.  Liv.  rv.  ch.  1 3.— D'Argentrfe,  Collect.  Judic. 
de  novis  error.  I.  ii.  151. 
II.— 9 


130  FRANCE. 

quisition  in  France  of  the  importance  which  it  had  once  enjoyed. 
It  no  longer  as  of  old  poured  into  the  royal  fisc  a  stream  of  con- 
fiscations and  co-operated  efficiently  in  consolidating  the  monarchy. 
It  had  done  its  work  too  well,  and  not  only  had  it  become  super- 
fluous as  an  instrument  for  the  throne,  but  the  throne  which  it  had 
aided  to  estabhsh  had  become  supreme  and  had  reduced  it  to  sub- 
jection. Even  in  the  plenitude  of  inquisitorial  power  the  tendency 
to  regard  the  royal  court  as  possessing  a  jurisdiction  higher  than 
that  of  the  Holy  Office  is  shown  in  the  case  of  Amiel  de  Lautrec, 
Abbot  of  S.  Sernin.  In  1322  the  Yiguier  of  Toulouse  accused  him 
to  the  Inquisition  for  having  preached  the  doctrine  that  the  soul 
is  mortal  in  essence  and  only  immortal  through  grace.  The  In- 
quisition examined  the  matter  and  decided  that  this  was  not  her- 
esy. The  royal  procureur-genei'al,  dissatisfied  with  this,  appealed 
from  the  decision,  not  to  the  pope  but  to  the  Parlement  or  royal 
court.  No  question  more  purely  spiritual  can  weU  be  conceived, 
and  yet  the  Parlement  gravely  entertained  the  appeal  and  asserted 
its  jurisdiction  by  confirming  the  decree  of  the  Inquisition.* 

This  was  ominous  of  the  future,  although  the  indefatigable 
Henri  de  Chamay,  apparently  alarmed  at  the  efforts  successfully 
made  by  Philippe  de  Valois  to  control  and  limit  spiritual  jurisdic- 
tions, procured  from  that  monarch,  in  November,  1329,  a  Mande- 
merit  confirming  the  privileges  of  the  Inquisition,  placing  all  tem- 
poral nobles  and  officials  afresh  at  its  disposal,  and  annulling  all 
letters  emanating  from  the  royal  court,  whether  past  or  future, 
which  should  in  any  way  impede  inquisitors  from  performing  their 
functions  in  accordance  with  their  commissions  from  the  Holy 
See.  The  evolution  of  the  monarchy  was  proceeding  too  rapidly 
to  be  checked.  Henri  de  Chamay  himself,  in  1328,  had  officially 
qualified  himself  as  inquisitor,  deputed,  not  by  the  pope,  as  had  al- 
ways been  the  formula  proudly  employed,  but  by  the  king,  and 
a  judicial  decision  to  this  effect  followed  soon  after.  It  was 
Philippe's  settled  policy  to  enforce  and  extend  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  crown,  and  in  pursuance  of  this  he  sent  Guillaume  de  YiUars 
to  Toulouse  to  reform  the  encroachments  of  the  ecclesiastical 
tribunals  over  the  royal  courts.  In  1330  de  Yillars,  in  the  per- 
formance of  his  duty,  caused  the  registers  of   the  ecclesiastical 


*  Chrou.  Bardin,  ann.  1323  (Vaissette,  IV.  Pr.  21-22). 


INQUISITION    SUBORDINATED    TO    THE    STATE.       131 

courts  to  be  submitted  to  him,  after  which  he  demanded  those  of 
the  Inquisition.  When  we  remember  how  jealously  these  were 
guarded,  how  arrogantly  Nicholas  d' Abbeville  had  refused  a  sight 
of  them  to  the  bishops  sent  by  Philippe  le  Bel,  and  how  long 
Jean  de  Pequigny  hesitated  before  he  interfered  with  Geoflfroi 
d'Ablis,  we  can  measure  the  extent  of  the  silent  revolution  which 
had  occurred  during  the  interval  in  the  relations  between  Church 
and  State,  by  the  fact  that  de  Y illars,  on  being  refused,  coolly  pro- 
ceeded to  break  open  the  door  of  the  chamber  in  which  the  regis- 
ters were  kept.  The  inquisitor  appealed,  and  again  it  was  not  to 
the  pope,  but  to  the  Parlement,  and  that  body,  in  condemning  de 
Yillars  to  pay  the  costs  and  damages,  did  so  on  the  ground  that 
the  Inquisition  was  a  royal  and  not  an  ecclesiastical  court.  This 
was  a  Pyrrhic  victory ;  the  State  had  absorbed  the  Inquisition. 
It  was  the  same  when,  in  1334,  Philippe  listened  to  the  complaints 
of  the  inquisitors  that  his  seneschals  disturbed  them  in  their  juris- 
diction, and  gave  orders  that  they  should  enjoy  all  their  ancient 
privileges,  for  these  are  treated  as  derived  wholly  from  the  royal 
power.  Henceforth  the  Inquisition  could  exist  only  on  sufferance, 
subject  to  the  supervision  of  the  Parlement,  while  the  Captivity 
of  Avignon,  followed  by  the  Great  Schism,  constantly  gave  to  the 
temporal  powers  increased  authority  in  spiritual  matters.* 

How  completely  the  Inquisition  was  becoming  an  affair  of 
state  is  indicated  by  two  incidents.  In  1340,  when  the  lieutenant 
of  the  king  in  Languedoc,  Louis  of  Poitou,  Count  of  Die  and 
Yalentinois,  was  making  his  entry  into  the  good  cit}^  of  Toulouse, 
he  found  the  gate  closed.  Dismounting  and  kneeling  bareheaded 
on  a  cushion,  he  took  an  oath  on  the  Gospels,  in  the  hands  of  the 
inquisitor,  to  preserve  the  privileges  of  the  Inquisition,  and  then 
another  oath  to  the  consuls  to  maintain  the  liberties  of  the  city. 
Thus  both  institutions  were  on  the  same  footing  and  required  the 
same  illusory  guarantee,  the  very  suggestion  of  which  would  have 
been  laughed  to  scorn  by  Bernard  Gui.  Again,  in  1368,  when 
the  royal  revenues  wxre  depleted  by  the  English  wars  and  the 
ravages  of  the  Free  Companies,  and  were  insufficient  to  pay  the 
wages  of  the  Inquisitor  of  Carcassonne,  Pierre  Scatisse,  the  royal 


*  Isambert,  Anc.  Loix  Fran9.  IV.  364-5.— Coll.  Doat,  XXVII.  118.— Vaissettc, 
IV.  Pr.  23. 


132  FRANCE. 

treasurer,  ordered  a  levy  by  the  consuls  of  twenty -six  livres 
tournois  to  complete  the  payment.  Confiscations  had  long  since 
ceased  to  meet  the  expenditures,  but  the  inquisitor  was  a  royal 
official  and  must  be  paid  by  the  city  if  not  by  the  state.* 

How  thorough  was  the  subjection  of  all  ecclesiastical  institu- 
tions, and  how  fallen  the  Inquisition  from  its  high  estate,  is  mani- 
fested by  an  occurrence  in  1364,  at  a  moment  when  the  royal  au- 
thority was  at  the  lowest  ebb.  King  John  had  died  a  prisoner  in 
London,  April  8,  and  the  young  Charles  Y.  was  not  crowned  until 
May  19,  while  his  kingdom  was  reduced  almost  to  anarchy  by 
foreign  aggression  and  internal  dissensions.  Yet,  April  16,  Mar- 
shal Arnaud  d'Audeneham,  Lieutenant  du  Roi  in  Languedoc,  con- 
voked at  Nimes  an  assembly  of  the  Three  Estates  presided  over 
by  the  Archbishop  of  Narbonne.  One  of  the  questions  discussed 
was  a  quarrel  between  the  Archbishop  of  Toulouse  and  the  inquis- 
itor whom  he  had  prohibited  from  exercising  his  functions,  saying 
that  the  Inquisition  had  been  established  at  the  request  of  the 
province  of  Languedoc,  and  that  now  it  had  become  an  injury. 
All  the  prelates,  except  Aymeri,  Bishop  of  Yiviers,  sided  with  the 
archbishop,  while  the  representatives  of  Toulouse  asked  to  be  ad- 
mitted as  parties  to  the  suit  on  the  side  of  the  inquisitor.  No  one 
seems  to  have  doubted  that  the  marshal,  as  royal  deputy,  had  full 
jurisdiction  over  the  matter,  and  his  decision  was  against  the 
archbishop,  t 

Even  in  Carcassonne,  where  the  Dominicans  had  lorded  it  so 
imperiously,  aU  fear  of  them  had  disappeared  so  utterly  that  in 
1354  a  sturdy  blacksmith  named  Hugues  erected  a  shop  close  to 
the  church  of  the  Friars,  and  carried  on  his  noisy  avocation  so 
vigorously  as  to  interrupt  their  services  and  interfere  with  their 
studies.  Remonstrances  and  threats  were  of  no  avail,  and  they 
were  obliged  to  appeal,  not  to  the  bishop  or  the  inquisitor,  but  to 
the  king,  who  graciously  sent  a  peremptory  order  to  his  seneschal 
to  remove  the  smithy  or  to  prevent  Hugues  from  working  in  it.:j: 

Towards  the  end  of  the  century  some  cases  occurring  in  Reims 
illustrate  how  completely  the  Inquisition  was  falling  into  abey- 

*  Chron.  Bardin,  ann.  1340,  1368  (Vaissette,  IV.  Pr.  27,  31). 
t  Chron.  Bardin,  ann.  1364  (Vaissette,  IV.  Pr.  30.    Cf.  A.  Molinier,  |)d.  Privat. 
X.  763). 

X  Martens  Thesaur.  I.  1399. 


SUBORDINATION    OF    INQUISITION.  I33 

ance  throughout  the  kingdom,  and  how  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
royal  court  of  the  Parlement  was  accepted  as  supreme  in  spiritual 
matters.  In  1385  there  arose  a  dispute  between  the  magistrates 
of  the  city  and  the  archbishop  as  to  jurisdiction  over  blasphemy, 
which  was  claimed  by  both.  This  was  settled  by  an  agreement 
recognizing  it  as  belonging  to  the  archbishop,  but  twenty  years 
later  the  quarrel  broke  out  afresh  over  the  case  of  Drouet  Largele, 
who  was  guilty  of  blasphemy  savoring  of  heresy  as  to  the  Passion 
and  the  Virgin.  The  matter  was  appealed  to  the  Parlement,  which 
decided  in  favor  of  the  archbishop,  and  no  allusion  throughout 
the  whole  affair  occurs  as  to  any  claim  that  the  Inquisition  might 
have  to  interpose,  showing  that  at  this  time  it  was  practically  dis- 
regarded. Yet  we  chance  to  know  that  Reims  was  the  seat  of  an 
Inquisition,  for  in  1419  Pierre  Floree  was  inquisitor  there,  and 
preached,  October  13,  the  funeral  sermon  at  the  obsequies  of  Jean 
sans  Peur  of  Burgundy,  giving  great  offence  by  urging  Philippe 
le  Bon  not  to  avenge  the  murder  of  his  father.  We  see  also  the 
scruples  of  the  Inquisition  on  the  subject  of  blasphemy  in  1423  at 
Toulouse,  where  it  had  become  the  custom  to  submit  to  the  inquis- 
itor the  names  of  all  successful  candidates  in  municipal  elections 
in  order  to  ascertain  whether  they  were  in  any  way  suspect  of 
heresy.  Among  the  capitouls  elected  in  1423  was  a  certain  Fran- 
gois  Albert,  who  was  objected  to  by  the  acting  inquisitor,  Frere 
Bartolome  Guiscard,  on  account  of  habitual  use  of  the  expletives 
Tete-Dieu  and  Ventre-Dieu,  whereupon  the  citizens  substituted 
Pierre  de  Sarlat.  Albert  appealed  to  the  Parlement,  which  ap- 
proved of  the  action  of  the  inquisitor.* 

Still  more  emphatic  as  to  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Parle- 
ment was  the  case  of  Marie  du  Canech  of  Cambrai,  to  which  I 
have  already  had  occasion  to  refer.  For  maintaining  that  when 
under  oath  she  was  not  bound  to  tell  the  truth  to  the  prejudice 
of  her  honor,  she  was  prosecuted  for  heresy  by  the  Bishop  of  Cam- 
brai and  Frere  Nicholas  de  Peronne,  styling  himself  deputy  of  the 
inquisitor-general  or  Provincial  of  Paris.  Being  severely  mulcted, 
she  appealed  to  the  Archbishop  of  Reims,  as  the  metropohtan, 


*  Arch.  Administratives  de  Reims,  III.  037-45.— Meyeri  Annal.  Flandr.  Lib. 
XVI.  ann.  1419.  —  Lafaille,  Annales  de  Toulouse  I.  183.  —  Chrou.  Bardin,  aun. 
1423  (Vaissette.  IV.  Pr.  38). 


134  PRANCE. 

and  he  issued  inhibitory  letters.  Then  the  bishop  and  inquisitor 
appealed  from  the  archl)ishop  to  the  Parleraent.  The  matter  was 
elaborately  argued  on  both  sides,  the  archbishop  alleging  that 
there  was  at  that  time  no  inquisitor  in  France,  and  drawing  a 
number  of  subtle  distinctions.  The  Parlement  had  no  hesitation 
in  accepting  jurisdiction  over  this  purely  spiritual  question.  It 
paid  no  attention  to  the  cautious  arguments  of  the  archbishop, 
but  decided  broadly  that  the  bishop  and  inquisitor  had  no  grounds 
for  disobeying  the  citation  of  the  archbishop  evoking  the  case  to 
his  own  com't,  and  it  condemned  them  in  costs.  Thus  the  ancient 
supremacy  of  the  episcopal  jurisdiction  was  reasserted  over  that 
of  the  Inquisition.* 

The  Great  Schism,  followed  by  the  councils  of  Constance  and 
Basle,  did  much  to  shake  the  papal  power  on  which  that  of  the 
Inquisition  was  founded.  The  position  of  Charles  VII.  towards 
Rome  Avas  consistently  insubordinate,  and  the  Pragmatic  Sanction 
which  he  published  in  1438  secured  the  independence  of  the  Gal- 
ilean Church,  and  strengthened  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Parlement. 
When  Louis  XL  abrogated  it,  in  1461,  the  remonstrances  of  his 
Parlement  form  a  singularly  free-spoken  indictment  of  papal  vices, 
and  that  body  continued  to  treat  the  instrument  as  practically  in 
force,  while  Louis  himself,  by  successive  measures  of  1463,  1470, 
1472,  1474,  1475,  and  1479,  gradually  re-estabUshed  its  principles. 
Had  not  the  Concordat  of  Francis  I.,  in  1516,  swept  it  away,  when 
he  conspired  with  Leo  X.  to  divide  the  spoils  of  the  Church,  it  would 
eventually  have  rendered  France  independent  of  Rome.  Francis 
knew  so  well  the  opposition  which  it  would  excite  that  he  hesi- 
tated for  a- year  to  submit  the  measure  to  his  Parlement  for  regis- 
tration, and  the  Parlement  deferred  the  registration  for  another 
year,  tiU  at  last  the  negotiator  of  the  concordat.  Cardinal  Duprat, 
brought  to  bear  sufficient  pressure  to  accomplish  the  object.  Dur- 
ing the  discussion  the  University  had  the  boldness  to  protest  pub- 
licly against  it,  and  to  lodge  Avlth  the  Parlement  an  appeal  to  the 
next  general  council.f 

*  Arch.  Administratives  de  Reims,  III.  639-43. 

t  Isambert,  Anc.  Loix  Frang.  IX.  3;  X.  393,  396-416,  477.— Bochelli  Decret. 
Eccles.  Gallican.  Lib.  iv.  Tit.  4,  5. — Bull,  de  la  Soc.  de  I'Hist.  du  Protestantisme 
en  France,  1860,  p.  121. — D'Argentrg  Coll.  Judic.  de  novis  Error.  I.  li.  357. — 
Fascic.  Rer.  Expetend.  et  Fugiend.  I.  68  (Ed.  1690). 


INFLUENCE    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY.  135 

During  this  period  of  antagonism  to  Rome  the  Univereity  of 
Paris  had  contributed  no  little  to  the  abasement  of  the  Inquisition 
by  supplanting  it  as  an  investigator  of  doctrine  and  judge  of  her- 
esy. Its  ancient  renown,  fully  maintained  by  an  uninterrupted 
succession  of  ardent  and  learned  teachers,  gave  it  great  authority. 
It  was  a  national  institution  of  which  clergy  and  laity  aUke  might 
weU  be  proud,  and  at  one  time  it  appeared  as  though  it  might 
rival  the  Parlement  in  growing  into  one  of  the  recognized  powers 
of  the  State.  In  the  fearful  anarchy  which  accompanied  the  insan- 
ity of  Charles  YI.  it  boldly  assumed  a  right  to  speak  on  public 
affairs,  and  its  interference  was  welcomed.  In  1411  the  king,  who 
chanced  at  the  time  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Burgundians,  ap- 
pealed to  it  to  excommunicate  the  Armagnacs,  and  the  University 
zealously  did  so.  In  1412  it  presented  a  remonstrance  to  the  king 
on  the  subject  of  the  financial  disorders  of  the  time  and  demanded 
a  reform.    Supported  by  the  Parisians,  at  its  dictate  the  financiers 


The  feelings  with  which  the  abrogation  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  in  1461 
was  received  are  well  expressed  in  the  "  PragmaticcB  Sanctionis  Passio,'"  Baluz. 
et  Mansi,  IV.  29. 

Pius  II.  is  singularly  candid  in  his  account  of  the  simoniacal  transaction 
through  which  he  purchased  the  abrogation  by  giving  the  cardinal's  hat  to  Jean, 
Bishop  of  Arras.  The  suggestion  at  first  provoked  the  liveliest  remonstrances 
from  the  members  of  the  Sacred  College,  who,  through  their  spokesman,  the  Car- 
dinal of  Avignon,  warned  Pius  that  there  would  be  no  peace  in  the  Consistory, 
for  the  bishop  would  set  them  all  by  the  ears,  and  that  his  unquiet  spirit  showed 
that  he  must  be  the  offspring  of  an  Incubus.  Pius  admitted  all  this,  but  argued 
that  it  was  an  unfortunate  necessity ;  both  Louis  XL  and  Philippe  le  Bon  had 
asked  for  his  promotion ;  unless  the  request  was  granted  the  Pragmatic  Sanc- 
tion would  not  be  abolished,  for  the  fury  of  the  disappointed  man  would  con- 
vert him  into  its  supporter,  and,  as  he  was  learned,  he  would  readily  find  ample 
Scriptural  warrant  to  adduce  in  its  favor,  which  would  be  decisive,  as  he  was 
the  only  man  in  France  who  urged  the  abrogation,  and  he  could  readily  lead 
the  king  to  change  his  mind.  These  arguments  were  convincing,  and  Pius 
enjoyed  the  supreme  triumj^h  of  destroying  the  last  relic  of  the  reforms  of  Con- 
stance and  Basle.  He  paid  dearly  for  it,  however,  in  the  annoyances  inflicted 
on  him  by  the  new  cardinal,  whom  he  describes  as  a  liar  and  a  perjurer,  avari- 
cious and  ambitious,  a  glutton  and  a  drunkard,  and  excessively  given  to  women. 
He  was  so  irascible  that  at  meals  he  would  frequently  throw  the  silver  plates 
and  vessels  at  the  servants,  and  occasionally  would  push  tlie  whole  table  over, 
to  the  dismay  of  his  guests. — ^n.  Sylvii  0pp.  inedd.  (Atti  dclla  Acrad.  dci  Lin- 
cei,  1883,  pp.  531,  546-8). 


136  FRANCE. 

and  thieves  of  the  government,  with  the  exception  of  the  chancel- 
lor, were  dismissed  in  1413,  greatly  to  the  discontent  of  the  comt- 
iers,  who  ridiculed  the  theologians  as  bookworms ;  and  in  the  same 
year  it  co-operated  with  the  Parlement  in  securing  momentary 
peace  between  the  angry  factions  of  the  land.  The  thanks  which 
the  heir-apparent,  the  Duke  of  Guienne,  accompanied  by  the  Dukec 
of  Berri,  Burgundy,  Bavaria,  and  Bar,  solemnly  rendered  to  the 
assembled  Faculty,  virtually  recognized  it  as  a  part  of  the  State. 
But  when,  in  1415,  it  sent  a  deputation  to  remonstrate  against  the 
oppression  of  the  people  through  excessive  taxation,  the  Duke  of 
Guienne,  who  was  angry  at  the  part  taken  by  it,  without  consult- 
ing the  court,  in  degrading  John  XXIII.  at  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance, curtly  told  the  spokesmen  that  they  were  interfering  in 
matters  beyond  their  competence ;  and  when  the  official  orator 
attempted  to  reply,  the  duke  had  him  arrested  on  the  spot  and 
kept  in  prison  for  several  days.* 

Though  its  temporary  ambition  to  rival  the  Parlement  in  state 
affairs  was  fortunately  not  gratified,  in  theology  such  a  body  as 
this  was  supreme.  It  would  naturally  be  called  upon,  either  as  a 
whole  or  by  delegates,  to  furnish  the  experts  whose  counsel  was 
to  guide  bishop  and  inquisitor  in  the  decision  of  cases ;  and  as  the 
old  heresies  died  out  and  new  ones  were  evolved,  every  deviation 
from  orthodoxy  came  to  be  submitted  to  it  as  a  matter  of  course, 
when  its  decision  was  received  as  final.  These  were  for  the  most 
part  scholastic  subtleties  to  which  I  shaU  recur  hereafter,  as  weU 
as  to  the  great  controversies  over  the  Immaculate  Conception  of 
the  Yirgin,  and  over  Nominalism  and  Realism,  in  which  it  took  a 
distinguished  part.  Sometimes,  however,  the  questions  were  more 
practical.  When  some  insolent  wretch,  in  1432,  impudently  told 
Frere  Pierre  de  Yoie,  the  deputy-inquisitor  of  Evreux,  that  his 
citations  were  simply  abuses,  the  offended  functionary,  in  place  of 
promptly  clapping  the  recalcitrant  into  prison,  plaintively  re- 
ferred the  case  to  the  University,  and  had  the  satisfaction  of  re- 
ceiving a  solemn  decision  that  the  words  were  audacious,  pre- 
sumptuous, scandalous,  and  tending  to  rebellion  (it  did  not  say 
heretical),  and  that  the  utterer  was  liable  to  punishment.     Ber- 


*  Juvenal  des  Ursins,  ann.  1411, 1413. — Religieux  de  S.  Denis,  Hist,  de  Charles 
VI.  Liv.  xxxn.  ch.  14;  xxxiii.  ch.  1,  15,  16;  xxxv.  ch.  18. 


INFLUENCE    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY.  I37 

nard  Gui  or  Nicholas  d' Abbeville  would  have  asked  for  no  such 
warrant.* 

To  what  an  extent  the  University  in  time  replaced  the  Inqui- 
sition in  its  neglected  and  forgotten  functions  is  shown  in  1498,  in 
the  case  of  the  Observantine  Franciscan,  Jean  Vitrier.  In  the 
restlessness  and  insubordination  which  heralded  the  Reformation, 
this  obscure  friar  anticipated  Luther  even  more  than  did  John  of 
Wesel,  although  in  the  strictness  of  his  asceticism  he  taught  that 
a  wife  might  better  break  her  marriage-vow  than  her  fasts.  In 
his  preaching  at  Tournay  he  counselled  the  people  to  drag  the 
concubines  and  their  priests  from  theb  houses  with  shame  and  de- 
rision ;  he  affirmed  that  it  was  a  mortal  sin  to  hsten  to  the  masses 
of  concubinary  priests.  Pardons  and  indulgences  were  the  off- 
spring of  heU :  the  faithful  ought  not  to  purchase  them,  for  they 
were  not  intended  for  the  maintenance  of  brothels.  Even  the 
intercession  of  the  saints  was  not  to  be  sought.  These  were  old 
heresies  for  which  any  inquisitor  would  promptly  offer  the  utterer 
the  alternative  of  abjuration  or  the  stake ;  but  the  prelates  and 
magistrates  of  Tournay  referred  the  matter  to  the  University, 
which  laboriously  extracted  from  Yitrier's  sermons  sixteen  propo- 
sitions for  condemnation,  f 

Even  more  significant  of  the  growing  authority  of  the  Univer- 
sity and  the  waning  power  of  the  Papacy  was  a  decision  rendered 
in  1502.  Alexander  YI.  had  levied  a  tithe  on  the  clergy  of  France, 
with  the  customary  excuse  of  prosecuting  the  war  against  the 
Turks.  The  clergy,  whose  consent  had  not  been  asked,  refused  to 
pay.  The  pope  rejoined  by  excommunicating  them,  and  they  ap- 
phed  to  the  University  to  know  whether  such  a  papal  excommuni- 
cation was  valid,  whether  it  was  to  be  feared,  and  whether  they 
should  consequently  abstain  from  the  performance  of  divine  ser- 
vice. On  all  these  points  the  University  replied  in  the  negative, 
unanimously  and  without  hesitation.  Had  circumstances  permit- 
ted the  same  independence  in  Germany,  a  little  more  progress  in 
this  direction  would  have  rendered  Luther  superfluous.:}: 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  ho^vever,  that  the  Inquisition,  though 
fallen  from  its  former  dignity,  had  ceased  to  exist  or  to  perform 


D'Argentrg,  op.  cit.  I.  n.  370.  +  Ibid.  1. 11.  340. 

t  Ibid.  I.  n.  346. 


138  FRANCE. 

its  functions  after  a  fasliion.  It  was  to  the  interest  of  the  popes 
to  maintain  it,  and  the  position  of  inquisitor,  though  humble  in 
comparison  with  that  which  his  predecessors  enjoyed,  was  yet  a 
source  of  influence,  and  possibly  of  profit,  which  led  to  its  being 
eagerly  sought.  In  1414  we  find  two  contestants  for  the  post  at 
Toulouse,  and  in  1424  an  unseemly  quarrel  between  two  rivals  at 
Carcassonne.  The  diocese  of  Geneva  was  also  the  subject  of  con- 
tention embittered  by  the  traditional  rivalry  between  the  two 
Mendicant  Orders.  It  will  be  remembered  that  in  1290  this,  with 
other  French  cantons,  was  included  by  Nicholas  lY.  in  the  in- 
quisitorial province  of  Besangon,  which  was  Dominican.  Geneva 
belonged,  however,  ecclesiastically  to  the  metropoUs  of  Vienne, 
which  was  under  the  Franciscan  Inquisition  of  Provence,  and 
Gregory  XI.  so  treated  it  in  1375.  When  Pons  Feugeyron  was 
commissioned,  in  1409,  Geneva  was  not  mentioned  in  the  enumera- 
tion of  the  dioceses  under  him ;  but  when  his  commission  was  re- 
newed by  Martin  V.,  in  1418,  it  was  included,  and  he  began  to  ex- 
ercise his  powers  there.  There  at  once  arose  the  threat  of  a  most 
scandalous  quarrel  between  the  combative  Orders ;  the  Domini- 
cans appealed  to  Martin,  and  in  1419  he  restored  Geneva  to  them. 
Yet  in  1434,  when  Eugenius  lY.  again  confirmed  Pons  Feugey- 
ron's  commission,  the  name  of  Geneva  once  more  slipped  in.  The 
Dominicans  must  again  have  successfully  reclaimed  it,  for  in  1472, 
when  there  was  a  sudden  resumption  of  inquisitorial  activity  un- 
der Sixtus  lY.,  in  confirming  Frere  Jean  Yaylette  as  Inquisitor  of 
Provence,  with  the  same  powers  as  Pons  Feugeyron,  Geneva  was 
omitted  in  the  fist  of  his  jurisdictions,  while  the  Dominicans,  Yic- 
tor  Rufl  and  Claude  Pufi,  were  appointed  respectively  at  Geneva 
and  Lausanne ;  and  in  1491  another  Dominican,  Francois  Granet, 
was  commissioned  at  Geneva.* 

Yet  the  position  thus  eagerly  sought  had  no  legitimate  means 
of  support.  In  the  terrible  disorders  of  the  times  the  royal  sti- 
pends had  been  withdrawn.  Alexander  Y.,  in  1409,  instructed  his 
legate,  the  Cardinal  of  S.  Susanna,  that  some  method  must  be  de- 
vised of  meeting  the  expenses  of  the  inquisitor,  his  associate,  his 
notary,  and  his  servant.    He  suggests  either  levying  three  hundred 


*  Wadding,  ann.  1375,  No.  17;    1418,  No.  1,  2;   1419,  No.  2 ;  1434,  No.  2,  3; 
1472,  No.  24.— RipoU  II.  522,  566-9,  637,  644 ;  III.  487 ;  IV.  6. 


DECLINE    OF    THE    INQUISITION.  139 

gold  florins  on  the  Jews  of  Avignon  ;  or  that  each  bishop  shall  de- 
fray the  cost  as  the  inquisitor  moves  from  one  diocese  to  another ; 
or  that  each  bishop  shall  contribute  ten  florins  annually  out  of  the 
legacies  for  pious  uses.  Which  device  was  adopted  does  not  ap- 
pear, but  they  all  seem  to  have  proved  fruitless,  for  in  1418  Mar- 
tin Y.  wrote  to  the  Archbishop  of  Narbonne  that  he  must  find 
some  means  of  supplying  the  necessary  expenses  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion. Under  such  circumstances  the  attraction  of  the  office  may, 
perhaps,  be  discerned  from  a  petition,  in  this  same  year  1418,  from 
the  citizens  of  Avignon  in  favor  of  the  Jews.  The  protection  af- 
forded by  the  Avignonese  popes  to  this  proscribed  class  had  ren- 
dered the  city  a  Jewish  centre,  and  they  were  found  of  much  utih- 
ty ;  but  they  were  constantly  molested  by  the  inquisitors,  who  in- 
stituted frivolous  prosecutions  against  them,  doubtless  not  without 
profit.  Martin  listened  kindly  to  the  appeal,  and  it  proves  the 
degradation  of  the  Inquisition  that  he  gave  the  Jews  a  right  to 
appoint  an  assessor  who  should  sit  with  the  inquisitor  in  all  cases 
in  which  they  were  concerned.* 

Still  the  Inquisition  was  not  wholly  without  evidence  of  ac- 
tivity in  its  purposed  sphere  of  duty.  We  shall  see  hereafter  that 
Pierre  d'Ailly,  Bishop  of  Cambrai,  when,  in  1411,  he  prosecuted 
the  Men  of  Intelligence,  duly  called  in  the  inquisitor  of  the  prov- 
ince, who  was  Dominican  Prior  of  St.  Quentin  in  Vermandois,  to 
join  in  the  sentence.  In  1430  we  hear  of  a  number  of  heretics 
who  had  been  burned  at  LiUe  by  the  deputy  -  inquisitor  and  the 
Bishop  of  Tournay ;  and  in  1431  Philippe  le  Bon  ordered  his  of- 
ficials to  execute  all  sentences  pronounced  by  Brother  Heim-ich 
Kaleyser,  who  had  been  appointed  Inquisitor  of  Cambrai  and  LiUe 
by  the  Dominican  Provincial  of  Germany — a  manifest  invasion  of 
the  rights  of  his  colleague  of  Paris,  doubtless  due  to  the  political 
complications  of  the  times.  This  order  of  Philippe  le  Bon,  how- 
ever, shows  that  the  example  of  supervision  set  by  the  Parlement 
was  not  lost  on  the  feudatories,  for  the  officials  are  only  instructed 
to  make  arrests  when  there  has  been  a  proper  preliminary  inquest, 
with  observance  of  aU  the  forms  of  law.  I  shall  have  occiision 
hereafter  to  speak  of  the  part  played  by  the  Inquisition  in  the 
tragedy  of  Joan  of  Arc,  and  need  here  only  allude  to  the  appoint- 


»  Wadding,  ann.  1409,  No.  13 ;  1418,  No.  1, 2,  4. 


140  FRANCE. 

ment,  in  1431,  by  Eugenius  IV.,  of  Frere  Jean  Graveran  to  be  In- 
quisitor of  Rouen,  where  he  was  already  exercising  tlie  functions 
of  the  office,  and  where  he  was  succeeded  in  1433  by  Frore  Sebastien 
I'Abbe,  who  had  been  papal  penitentiary  and  chaplain — another 
evidence  of  the  partition  of  France  during  the  disastrous  English 
war.  People  were  growing  more  careless  about  excommunication 
than  ever.  About  1415,  a  number  of  ecclesiastics  of  Limoges  were 
prosecuted  by  the  inquisitor,  Jean  du  Puy,  as  suspect  of  heresy  for 
this  cause ;  they  appealed  to  the  Council  of  Constance,  and  in  1418 
the  matter  was  referred  back  to  the  archbishop.  Still  the  indif- 
ference to  excommunication  grew,  and  in  1435  Eugenius  IV.  in- 
structed the  Inquisitor  of  Carcassonne  to  prosecute  all  who  re- 
mained under  the  censure  of  the  Church  for  several  years  without 
seeking  absolution.* 

With  the  pacification  of  France  and  the  final  expulsion  of  the 
English,  Nicholas  V.  seems  to  have  thought  the  occasion  oppor- 
tune for  reviving  and  establishing  the  Inquisition  on  a  firmer  and 
broader  basis.  A  bull  of  August  1,  1451,  to  Hugues  le  Noir,  In- 
quisitor of  France,  defines  his  jurisdiction  as  extending  not  only 
over  the  Kingdom  of  France,  but  also  over  the  Duchy  of  Aquitaine 
and  all  Gascony  and  Languedoc.  Thus,  with  the  exception  of  the 
eastern  provinces,  the  whole  was  consolidated  into  one  district, 
with  its  principal  seat  probably  in  Toulouse.  The  jurisdiction  of 
the  inquisitor  was  likewise  extended  over  all  offences  that  had 
hitherto  been  considered  doubtful  —  blasphemy,  sacrilege,  divina- 
tion, even  when  not  savoring  of  heresy,  and  unnatural  crimes. 
He  was  further  released  from  the  necessity  of  episcopal  co-opera- 
tion, and  was  empowered  to  carry  on  all  proceedings  and  render 
judgment  without  calling  the  bishops  into  consultation.  Two 
centuries  earlier  these  enormous  powers  would  have  rendered 
Hugues  ahnost  omnipotent,  but  now  it  was  too  late.  The  Inqui- 
sition had  sunk  beyond  resuscitation.  In  1458  the  Franciscan 
Minister  of  Burgundy  represented  to  Pius  II.  the  deplorable  con- 
dition of  the  institution  in  the  extensiv^e  territories  confided  to  Ms 
Order,  comprising  the  great  archiepiscopates  of  Lyons,  Vienne, 
Aries,  Aix,  Embrun,  and  Tarantaise,  and  covering  both  sides  of 


*  Baluz.  et  Mansi  I.  288-93.— Arch.  Ggn.  de  Belgique,  Papiers  d'f:tat,  v.  405.— 
MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  Moreau,  444,  fol.  lO.-RipoU  II.  533  ;  III.  6,  8,  21, 193. 


DECLINE    OF    THE    INQUISITION.  141 

the  Rhone  and  a  considerable  portion  of  Savoy.  In  the  thirteenth 
century  Clement  IV.  had  placed  this  region  under  the  control  of 
the  Burgundian  Minister,  but  with  the  lapse  of  time  his  supervis- 
ion had  become  nominal.  Ambitious  friars  had  obtained  directly 
from  the  popes  commissions  to  act  as  inquisitors  in  special  dis- 
tricts, and  therefore  acknowledged  no  authority  but  their  own. 
Others  had  assumed  the  office  without  appointment  from  any  one. 
There  was  no  power  to  correct  their  excesses ;  scandals  were  nu- 
merous, the  people  were  oppressed,  and  the  Order  exposed  to  op- 
probrium. Pi  as  hastened  to  put  an  end  to  these  abuses  by  re- 
newing the  obsolete  authority  of  the  minister,  with  full  power  of 
removal,  even  of  those  who  enjoyed  papal  commissions.* 

The  Inquisition  was  thus  reorganized,  but  its  time  had  passed. 
To  so  low  an  ebb  had  it  fallen  that  in  this  same  year,  1458,  Frere 
Berard  Tremoux,  Inquisitor  of  Lyons,  who  had  aroused  general 
hostilit}'^  by  the  rigor  with  which  he  exercised  his  office,  was 
thrown  in  prison  through  the  efforts  of  the  citizens,  and  it  re- 
quired the  active  interposition  of  Pius  II.  and  his  legate.  Cardinal 
Alano,  to  effect  his  release.  The  venahty  and  corruption  of  the 
papal  curia,  moreover,  was  so  ineradicable  that  no  reform  was  pos- 
sible in  anything  subject  to  its  control.  But  three  years  after 
Pius  had  placed  the  whole  district  under  the  Minister  of  Burgun- 
dy we  find  him  renewing  the  old  abuses  by  a  special  appointment 
of  Brother  Bartholomiius  of  Eger  as  Inquisitor  of  Grenoble.  That 
such  commissions  were  sold,  or  conferred  as  a  matter  of  favor, 
there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt,  and  the  appointees  were  turned 
loose  upon  their  districts  to  wring  what  miserable  gains  they  could 
from  the  fears  of  the  people.  Only  this  can  explain  a  form  of  ap- 
pointment which  became  common  as  "  inquisitor  in  the  Kingdom 
of  France,"  "  without  prejudice  to  other  inquisitors  authorized  by 
us  or  by  others  "  —  a  sort  of  letter-of -marque  to  cruise  at  large 
and  make  what  the  appointees  could  from  the  faithful.  Similarly 
significant  is  the  appointment  of  Frere  Pierre  Cordrat,  confessor 
of  Jean,  Duke  of  Bourbon,  in  1478,  to  be  Inquisitor  of  Bourges, 
thus  wholly  disregarding  the  consolidation  of  the  kingdom  by 
Nicholas  V.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  extend  the  list  further. 
Inquisitors  were  appointed  by  the  popes  in  constant  succession, 


Ripoll  III.  301.  — Wadding,  ann.  1458,  No.  12. 


142  FRANCE. 

either  for  the  kingdom  of  France  or  for  special  districts,  as  though 
tlie  institution  were  at  the  height  of  its  power  and  activity.  That 
something  was  to  be  gained  by  all  this  there  can  be  no  question, 
but  there  is  Uttle  risk  in  assuming  that  the  gainer  was  not  re- 
ligion.* 

Several  cases  occurring  about  this  period  are  interesting  as 
illustrations  of  the  spread  of  the  spirit  of  inquiry  and  indepen- 
dence, and  of  the  subordinate  position  to  which  the  Inquisition 
had  sunk.  In  1459,  at  LiUe,  there  was  burned  a  heretic  known  as 
Alphonse  of  Portugal,  who  led  an  austere  life  as  an  anchorite  and 
frequented  the  churches  assiduously,  but  who  declared  that  since 
Gregory  the  Great  there  had  been  no  true  pope,  and  consequently 
no  vahd  administration  of  the  sacraments.  In  the  account  which 
has  reached  us  of  his  trial  and  execution  there  is  no  allusion  to  the 
intervention  of  the  Holy  Offica  Still  more  significant  is  the  case, 
in  1484,  of  Jean  LaiUier,  a  priest  in  Paris,  a  theological  licentiate, 
and  an  applicant  for  the  doctorate  in  theology.  In  his  sermons 
he  had  been  singularly  free-spoken.  He  denied  the  validity  of 
the  rule  of  celibacy;  he  quoted  Wickliff  as  a  great  doctor;  he 
rejected  the  supremacy  of  Rome  and  the  binding  force  of  tradition 
and  decretal ;  John  XXIL,  he  said,  had  had  no  powei-  to  condemn 
Jean  de  PoiUy;  so  far  from  St.  Francis  occupying  the  vacant 
throne  of  Lucifer  in  heaven,  he  was  rather  with  Lucifer  in  heU; 
since  the  time  of  Silvester  the  Holy  See  had  been  the  church  of 
avarice  and  of  imperial  power,  where  canonization  could  be  ob- 
tained for  money.  So  weak  had  become  the  traditional  hold  of 
the  Church  on  the  consciences  of  men  that  this  revolutionary 
preaching  seems  to  have  aroused  no  opposition,  even  on  the  part 
of  the  Inquisition ;  but  Laillier,  not  content  with  simple  toleration, 
applied  to  the  University  for  the  doctorate,  and  was  refused  ad- 
mission to  the  preliminary  disputations  unless  he  should  purge 
himself,  undergo  penance,  and  obtain  the  assent  of  the  Holy  See. 

*  Wadding,  aun.  1458,'No.  13;  1461,  No.  3.  — Ripoll  III.  317,  423,  487;  IV. 
103,  217,  303,  304,  356,  373. 

A  MS.  of  Bernard  Gui's  Practica,  now  in  the  Municipal  Library  of  Toulouse, 
bears  a  marginal  note  that  it  was  lent  by  the  Inquisition  of  Toulouse,  in  1483,  to 
the  Dominicans  of  Bordeaux  to  be  transcribed,  thus  showing  that  there  was  an 
Inquisition  in  operation  in  the  latter  city  of  which  the  members  required  instruc- 
tion in  their  duties  (Moliuier,  L'Inq.  dans  le  midi  de  la  France,  p,  201). 


CASE    OF    JEAN    LAILLIER.  143 

Laillier  thereupon  boldly  applied  to  the  Parlement,  now  by  tacit 
assent  clothed  with  supreme  jurisdiction  in  ecclesiastical  matters, 
asking  it  to  compel  the  University  to  admit  him.  The  Parlement 
entertained  no  doubts  as  to  its  own  competence,  but  decided  the 
case  in  a  manner  not  looked  for  by  the  hardy  priest.  It  ordered 
Louis,  Bishop  of  Paris,  in  conjunction  with  the  inquisitor  and  four 
doctors  selected  by  the  University,  to  prosecute  Laillier  to  due 
punishment.  The  bishop  and  inquisitor  agreed  to  proceed  sepa- 
rately and  communicate  their  processes  to  each  other ;  but  Laillier 
must  have  had  pow^erful  backers,  for  Bishop  Louis,  without  con- 
ferring with  his  colleague  or  the  experts,  allowed  Lailher  to  make 
a  partial  recantation  and  a  public  abjuration  couched  in  the  most 
free  and  easy  terms,  absolved  him,  June  23, 1486,  pronounced  him 
free  from  suspicion  of  heresy,  restored  him  to  his  functions,  and 
declared  him  capable  of  promotion  to  all  grades  and  honors. 
Frere  Jean  Cossart,  the  inquisitor,  who  had  been  diligently  col- 
lecting evidence  of  many  scandalous  doctrines  of  LaiUier's  and 
vainly  communicating  them  to  the  bishop,  was  forced  to  swallow 
this  affront  in  silence,  but  the  University  felt  its  honor  engaged 
and  was  not  incHned  to  submit.  November  6, 1486,  it  issued  a 
formal  protest  against  the  action  of  the  bishop,  appealed  to  the 
pope,  and  demanded  "  Apostoh."  Innocent  YIII.  promptly  came 
to  the  rescue.  He  annulled  the  decision  of  the  bishop  and  ordered 
the  inquisitor,  in  conjunction  with  the  Archbishop  of  Sens  and 
the  Bishop  of  Meaux,  to  throw  Laillier  into  prison,  while  they 
should  investigate  the  unrecanted  heresies  and  send  the  papers  to 
Rome  for  decision.  Very  suggestive  of  the  strong  influences  sup- 
porting Laillier  is  the  pope's  expression  of  fear  lest  the  pressure 
brought  to  bear  on  the  University  should  have  forced  it  to  admit 
him  to  the  doctorate ;  if  so,  such  action  is  pronounced  void,  and 
all  engaged  in  the  attempt  are  ordered  to  desist  under  pain  of  in- 
curring suspicion  of  heresy.  It  is  not  a  httle  singular  that  the 
Bishop  of  Meaux,  who  was  thus  selected  to  sit  in  judgment  on 
Laillier,  was  at  this  very  time  under  censure  by  the  University  for 
reviving  the  Donatist  heresy  of  the  insufficiency  of  the  sacraments 
in  polluted  hands — the  Eucharist  of  a  fornicating  priest  was  of  no 
more  account,  he  said,  than  the  barking  of  a  dog.  Many  an  un- 
fortunate Waldensian  had  been  burned  for  less  than  this,  but  ihe 
inquisitor  had  not  dared  to  hold  him  to  account.    Nor  do  we  hear 


144  FRANCE. 

of  his  intervention  in  the  case  of  Jean  Langlois,  priest  of  St.  Cris- 
pin, who,  when  celebrating  mass,  June  3,  1491,  horrified  his  flock 
by  casting  on  the  floor  and  trampling  the  consecrated  wine  and 
host.  On  his  arrest  he  gave  as  his  reason  that  the  body  and  blood 
of  Christ  were  not  in  the  elements,  and  as  he  stubbornly  refused 
to  recant,  he  expiated  his  error  at  the  stake.  Similar  was  the  fate 
of  Aymon  Picard,  who,  at  the  feast  of  St.  Louis  in  the  Sainte-Cha- 
pelle,  August  25,  1503,  snatched  the  host  from  the  celebrant  and 
cast  it  in  pieces  on  the  floor,  and  obstinately  declined  to  abjure. 
All  this  was  significant  of  the  time  coming  when  the  Inquisition 
would  be  more  necessary  than  ever.* 

The  present  degradation  which  it  shared  with  the  rest  of  the 
Church  in  the  constantly  growing  supremacy  of  the  State  is  mani- 
fested by  a  commission  issued  in  1485,  by  Frere  Antoine  de  Clede, 
appointing  a  vicar  to  act  for  him  in  Kodez  and  Yabres.  In  this 
document  he  styles  himself  Inquisitor  of  France,  Aquitaine,  Gas- 
cony,  and  Languedoc,  deputed  by  the  Holy  See  and  the  Parlement. 
The  two  bodies  are  thus  equal  sources  of  authority,  and  the  ap- 
pointment by  the  pope  would  have  been  insuflicient  without  the 
confirmation  by  the  royal  court.  How  contemptible,  indeed,  the 
Inquisition  had  become,  even  in  the  eyes  of  ecclesiastics,  is  brought 
instructively  before  us  in  a  petty  quarrel  between  the  Inquisitor 
Raymond  Gozin  and  liis  Dominican  brethren.  When  he  succeeded 
Frere  Gaillard  de  la  Roche,  somewhere  about  1516,  he  found  that 
the  house  of  the  Inquisition  at  Toulouse  had  been  stripped  of  its 
furniture  and  utensils  by  the  friars  of  the  Dominican  convent. 
He  made  a  reclamation,  and  some  of  the  articles  were  restored ; 
but  the  friars  subsequently  demanded  them  back,  and  on  his  re- 
fusal procured  from  the  General  Master  instructions  to  the  vicar, 
under  which  the  latter  proceeded  to  extremities  ^vith  him,  wholly 
disregarding  his  appeal  to  the  pope,  though  he  finally,  in  1520, 
succeeded  in  obtaining  the  intervention  of  Leo  X.  Imagination 
could  scarcely  furnish  a  more  convincing  proof  of  decadence  than 
this  exhibition  of  the  successor  of  Bernard  de  Caux  and  Bernard 
Gui  vainly  endeavoring  to  defend  his  kitchen  gear  from  the  rapar 
cious  hands  of  his  brethi^en.f 

*  Mfemoires  de  Jacques  du  Clercq,  Liv.  iii.  ch.  43. — D'Argentrfe,  op.  cit.  L  ll, 
308-18,  319-20,  323,  347. 

t  Bremond,  ap.  Ripoll  IV.  373.— RipoU  IV.  390. 


THE    WALDENSES.  145 

It  is  quite  probable  that  this  dispute  was  envenomed  by  the 
inevitable  jealousy  between  the  main  body  of  the  Order  and  its 
puritan  section  known  as  the  Reformed  Congregation.  Of  this 
latter  Raymond  Gozin  was  vicar-general,  and  his  anxiety  to  re- 
gain his  furnishings  was  probably  due  to  the  fact  that  he  was  al- 
tering the  house  of  the  Inquisition  so  as  to  accommodate  within 
it  a  Reformed  convent.  The  vast  buildings  which  it  had  requu'ed 
in  the  plenitude  of  its  power  had  become  a  world  too  wide  for  its 
shrunken  needs.  The  original  home  of  the  Dominican  Order,  before 
the  removal  in  1230  through  the  liberality  of  Pons  de  Capdenier, 
it  contained  a  church  with  three  altars,  a  refectory,  cells  (or  prison), 
chambers,  guest-rooms,  cloisters,  and  two  gardens.  In  approving 
of  the  proposed  alterations,  Leo  X.  stipulated  that  some  kind  ot 
retiring-room  with  convenient  offices  must  still  be  reserved  for  the 
use  of  the  Inquisition.  This  epitomizes  the  history  of  the  institu- 
tion. Yet  it  had  by  no  means  wholly  lost  its  power  of  evil,  for  in 
1521  Johann  Bomm,  Dominican  Prior  of  Poligny,  and  inquisitor 
at  Besangon  had  the  satisfaction  of  despatching  two  lycanthropists, 
or  wer-wolves.* 


The  career  of  the  Waldenses  forms  so  interesting  and  well- 
defined  an  episode  in  the  history  of  persecution  that  I  have  hitherto 
omitted  aU  reference  to  that  sect,  in  order  to  present  a  brief,  con- 
tinuous outline  of  its  relations  with  the  Inquisition,  which  found 
in  it,  after  the  disappearance  of  the  Cathari,  the  only  really  im- 
portant field  of  labor  in  France, 

Although  by  no  means  as  numerous  or  as  powerful  in  Langue- 
doc  as  the  Cathari,  tlie  Waldenses  formed  an  important  lieretical 
element.  They  were,  however,  mostly  confined  to  the  humbler 
classes,  and  we  hear  of  few  nobles  belonging  to  the  sect.  In  the 
sentences  of  Pierre  Cella,  rendered  in  Querci  in  1241  and  1212,  we 
have  abundant  testimony  as  to  their  numbers  and  activity.  Thus, 
references  occur  to  them — 

At  Gourdon  in 55  cases  out  of  219 

AtMontcucqin 44      "        "    "     84 

At  Sauveterre  in 1    case     "    "      5 


*  RipoU  IV.  376.— Wieri  de  Prsestig.  Daemon.  Lib.  vi.  c.  11, 
II.— 10 


146  FRANCE. 

At  Belcayre  in 3  cases  out  of     7 


At  Moutauban  in 175 

At  Moissac  in 1 

At  Montpezat  in no 

At  Montaut  in no 

At  Castelnau  in 1 


253 
94 
22 
23 
11 


and  although  many  of  these  are  mere  allusions  to  having  seen 
them  or  had  dealings  with  them,  the  comparative  frequency  of 
the  reference  indicates  the  places  where  their  heresy  was  most 
flourishing.  Thus,  Montauban  was  evidently  its  headquarters  in 
the  district,  and  at  Gourdon  and  Montcucq  there  were  vigorous 
colonies. 

They  had  a  regular  organization — schools  for  the  young  where 
their  doctrines  were  doubtless  implanted  in  the  children  of  ortho- 
dox parents ;  cemeteries  where  their  dead  were  buried ;  missiona- 
ries who  traversed  the  land  diligently  to  spread  the  faith,  and 
who  customarily  refused  all  alms,  save  hospitality.  A  certain 
Pierre  des  Yaux  is  frequently  referred  to  as  one  of  the  most  active 
and  most  beloved  of  these,  regarded,  according  to  one  of  his  dis- 
ciples, as  an  angel  of  light.  Public  preaching  in  the  streets  was 
constant,  and  numerous  allusions  are  made  to  disputations  held  be- 
tween the  Waldensian  ministers  and  the  Catharan  perfects.  Still, 
the  utmost  good  feeling  existed  between  the  two  persecuted  sects. 
Men  were  found  who  confessed  to  beheving  in  the  Waldenses  and 
to  performing  acts  of  adoration  to  the  Cathari — in  the  common 
enmity  to  Rome  any  faith  which  was  not  orthodox  was  regarded 
as  good.  The  reputation  of  the  Waldenses  as  skilful  leeches  was 
a  powerful  aid  in  their  missionary  labors.  They  were  constantly 
consulted  in  cases  of  disease  or  injury,  and  almost  without  excep- 
tion they  refused  payment  for  their  ministrations,  save  food.  One 
woman  confessed  to  giving  forty  sols  to  a  Catharan  for  medical 
services,  while  to  Waldenses  she  gave  only  wine  and  bread.  We 
learn  also  that  they  heard  confessions  and  imposed  penance ;  that 
they  celebrated  a  sacramental  supper  in  which  bread  and  fish  were 
blessed  and  partaken  of,  and  that  bread  which  they  consecrated 
with  the  sign  of  the  cross  was  regarded  as  holy  by  their  disciples. 
Notmthstanding  the  strength  and  organization  of  the  sect,  the 
Waldenses  were  evidently  looked  upon  by  Pierre  Cella  with  a  less 


THE    WALDENSES.  147 

unfavorable  eye  than  the  Cathari,  and  the  penances  imposed  on 
them  were  habitually  Ughter.* 

From  Lyons  the  Waldensian  belief  had  spread  to  the  North 
and  East,  as  well  as  to  the  South  and  "West.  It  is  a  curious  fact 
that  while  the  Cathari  never  succeeded  in  establishing  themselves 
to  any  extent  beyond  the  Romance  territories,  the  Waldenses 
were  already,  in  1192,  so  numerous  in  Lorraine  that  Eudes,  Bishop 
of  Toul,  in  ordering  them  to  be  captured  and  brought  to  him  in 
chains  for  judgment,  not  only  promises  remission  of  sins  as  a  re- 
ward, but  feels  obhged  to  add  that  if,  for  rendering  this  service, 
the  faithful  are  driven  away  from  their  homes,  he  will  find  them 
in  food  and  clothing.  In  Tranche  Comte,  John,  Count  of  Bur- 
gundy, bears  emphatic  testimony  to  their  numbers  in  1248,  when 
he  sohcited  of  Innocent  IV.  the  introduction  of  the  Inquisition 
in  his  dominions,  and  its  discontinuance  in  1257  doubtless  left 
them  to  multiply  in  peace.  In  1251  we  find  the  Archbishop  of 
Narbonne  condemning  some  female  Waldenses  to  perpetual  im- 
prisonment. It  was,  however,  in  the  mountains  of  Auvergne  and 
the  Alpine  and  sub -Alpine  regions  stretching  between  Geneva 
and  the  Mediterranean  that  they  found  the  surest  refuge.  While 
Pierre  CeUa  was  penancing  those  of  Querci,  the  Archbishop  of 
Embrun  was  busy  with  their  brethren  of  Freyssinieres,  Argen- 
tiere,  and  Yal-Pute,  which  so  long  continued  to  be  their  strong- 
holds. In  1251,  when  Alphonse  and  Jeanne,  on  their  accession,  guar- 
anteed at  Beaucaire  the  hberties  of  Avignon  and  the  Comtat  Ye- 
naissin,  the  Bishop-legate  Zoen  earnestly  urged  them  to  destroy 
the  Waldenses  there.  There  were  ample  laws  on  the  municipal 
statute-books  of  Avignon  and  Aries  for  the  extermination  of 
"heretics  and  Waldenses,"  but  the  local  magistracy  was  slack  in 
their  enforcement  and  was  obhged  to  swear  to  extirpate  the  sec- 
taries.    The  Waldenses  were  mostly  simple  mountain  folk,  with 


•  Coll.  Doat,  XXI.  197,  203,  208,  223,  225,  232,  233,  234,  236,  238,  241,  244, 
250,  252,  254,  261-2,  263,  264,  265,  266,  267,  269,  270,  271,  275,  276,  281,  282, 
289,  296. 

It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  note  that  Raymond  de  P6reille,  the  Castellan  of 
MontsSgur,  and  his  companions,  when  on  trial,  while  freely  giving  evidence 
about  innumerable  Cathari.  declared  that  they  knew  nothing  whatever  about 
Waldenses,  which  would  seem  to  indicate  that  there  was  little  communication 
between  the  sects  (Doat,  XXTT.  217  ;  XXIII.  344;  XXIV.  8). 


148  FRANCE. 

possessions  that  offered  no  temptation  for  confiscation,  and  perse- 
cuting energy  was  more  profitable  and  more  usefully  directed 
against  the  richer  Cathari.  We  hear,  indeed,  that  from  1271  to 
1274  the  zeal  of  Guillaume  de  Cobardon,  Seneschal  of  Carcas- 
sonne, urged  the  inquisitors  to  active  work  against  the  Waklenses, 
resulting  in  numerous  convictions,  but  among  the  far  more  popu- 
lous communities  near  the  Rhone  the  Inquisition  was  not  intro- 
duced into  the  Comtat  Venaissin  until  1288,  nor  into  Dauphine 
until  1292,  and  in  both  cases  we  are  told  that  it  was  caused  by 
the  alarming  spread  of  heresy.  In  1288  the  same  increase  is  al- 
luded to  in  the  provinces  of  Aries,  Aix,  and  Embrun,  when  Nich- 
olas IV.  sent  to  the  nobles  and  magistrates  there  the  laws  of 
Frederic  II.,  with  orders  for  their  enforcement,  and  to  the  inquis- 
itors a  code  of  instructions  for  procedure.* 

About  the  same  period  there  is  a  curious  case  of  a  priest  named 
Jean  Philibert,  who  was  sent  from  Burgundy  into  Gascony  to 
track  a  fugitive  Waldensian.  He  followed  his  quarry  as  far  as 
Ausch,  where  he  found  a  numerous  community  of  the  sectaries, 
holding  regular  assemblies  and  preaching  and  performing  their 
rites,  although  they  attended  the  parish  churches  to  avert  suspi- 
cion. Their  evangehcal  piety  so  won  upon  him  that,  after  going 
home,  he  returned  to  Ausch  and  formally  joined  them.  He  wan- 
dered back  to  Burgundy,  where  he  fell  under  suspicion,  and  in 
1298  he  was  brought  before  Gui  de  Reims,  the  Inquisitor  of  Be- 
sangon,  when  he  refused  to  take  an  oath  and  was  consigned  to 
prison.  Here  he  abjured,  and  on  being  Uberated  returned  to  the 
Waldenses  of  Gascony,  was  again  arrested,  and  brought  before 
Bernard  Gui  in  1311,  who  finally  burned  him  in  1319  as  a  re- 
lapsed. In  1302  we  hear  of  two  Waldensian  ministers  haunting 
the  region  near  Castres,  in  the  Albigeois,  wandering  around  by 
night  and  zealously  propagating  their  doctrines.  Still,  in  spite  of 
these  evidences  of  activity,  little  effort  at  repression  is  visible  at 


*  Statut.  Synod.  Odonis  Tullensis  ann.  1192,  c.  ix.,  x.  (Martene  Thesaur.  IV. 
1180). — RipoU  I.  183. — Douais,  Les  sources  de  I'histoire  de  I'Inq.  (Revue  des 
Questions  Historiques,  Oct.  1881,  p.  434).  —  Peyrat,  Les  Alb.  et  I'lnquis.  III.  74. 
— Chabrand,  Vaudois  et  Protestants  des  Alpes,  Grenoble,  1886,  p.  34.  —  Havet, 
L'heresie  et  le  bras  seculier  (Bib.  de  rf^cole  des  Chartes,  1880,  p.  585). — Vais- 
sette,  IV.  17.  —  A.  Molinier  (Vaissette,  fid.  Privat,  VI.  819).  —  Wadding,  ann. 
1288,  No.  14-15;  1292,  No.  3.— Raynald.  ann.  1288,  No.  27-8. 


THE    WALDENSES.  149 

this  period.  The  Inquisition  was  crippled  for  a  while  by  its  con- 
test with  Philippe  le  Bel  and  Clement  V.,  and  when  it  resumed 
unrestricted  operations,  Pierre  Autier  and  his  Catharan  disciples 
absorbed  its  energies.  Although  the  sentences  of  Bernard  Gui  at 
Toulouse  commence  in  1308,  it  is  not  until  the  auto  de  fS  of  1316 
that  any  Waldenses  appear  among  its  victims,  \vhen  one  was  con- 
demned to  perpetual  imprisonment  and  one  was  burned  as  an  un- 
repentant heretic.  The  auto  of  1319  appears  to  have  been  a  jail- 
delivery,  for  poor  wretches  appear  in  it  whose  confessions  date 
back  to  1309,  1311,  1312,  and  1315.  On  this  occasion  eighteen 
Waldenses  were  condemned  to  pilgrimages  with  or  without  cross- 
es, twenty-six  to  perpetual  prison,  and  three  were  burned.  In  the 
auto  of  1321  a  man  and  his  wife  who  obstinately  refused  to  ab- 
jure were  burned.  In  that  of  1322  eight  were  sentenced  to  pil- 
grimages, of  whom  five  had  crosses,  two  to  prison,  six  dead  bodies 
were  exhumed  and  burned,  and  there  is  an  allusion  to  the  brother 
of  one  of  the  prisoners  who  had  been  burned  at  Avignon.  This 
comprises  the  whole  work  of  Bernard  Grui  from  1308  to  1323,  and 
does  not  indicate  any  very  active  persecution.  It  is  perhaps  note- 
worthy that  all  of  those  punished  in  1319  were  from  Ausch,  while 
the  popular  name  of  "  Burgundians,"  by  which  the  Waldenses 
were  known,  indicates  that  the  headquarters  of  the  sect  were  still 
in  Franche  Comte.  In  fact,  an  allusion  to  a  certain  Jean  de  Lor- 
raine as  a  successful  missionary  indicates  that  region  as  busy  in 
proselyting  efforts,  and  there  are  not  wanting  facts  to  prove  that 
the  Inquisition  of  Besangon  was  active  during  this  period.  In  the 
auto  of  1322  many  of  the  sufferers  were  refugees  from  Burgundy, 
and  we  learn  that  they  had  a  provincial  named  Girard,  showing 
that  the  Waldensian  Church  of  that  region  had  a  regular  organi- 
zation and  hierarchy.* 

In  his  "Pracfo'ca"  Bernard  Gui  gives  a  clear  and  detailed 
statement  of  the  Waldensian  belief  as  it  existed  at  this  time,  the 
chief  points  of  which  may  be  worth  enumerating  as  affording  us 
a  definite  view  of  the  development  of  the  faith  in  its  original  seat 
after  a  century  and  a  half  of  persecution.  There  ^vas  no  longer 
any  self-deceit  as  to  connection  with  the  Roman  Church.     Perse- 


»  Lib.  Sententt.  Tiki.  Tolos.  pp.  200-1,  207-8,  21G-43,  252^.  262-r),  289-90, 
340-7,  352,  355,  3G4-66.— Arch,  de  I'luci.  de  Carcass.  (Doat,  XXVII.  7  sqq.). 


150  FRANCE. 

cution  had  done  its  work,  and  the  Waldenses  were  permanently 
severed.  Theirs  was  the  true  Church,  and  that  of  the  pope  was 
but  a  house  of  hes,  whose  excommunication  was  not  to  be  re- 
garded, and  whose  decrees  were  not  to  be  obeyed.  They  had  a 
complete  organization,  consisting  of  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons, 
and  they  held  in  some  large  city  one  or  two  general  chapters  ev- 
ery year,  in  which  orders  were  conferred  and  measures  for  mission 
work  were  perfected.  The  Waldensian  orders,  however,  did  not 
confer  exclusive  supernatural  power.  Although  they  still  believed 
in  transubstantiation,  the  making  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ 
depended  on  the  purity  of  the  ministrant ;  a  sinner  was  impotent 
to  effect  it,  while  it  could  be  done  by  any  righteous  man  or  wom- 
an. It  was  the  same  with  absolution  :  they  held  the  power  of  the 
keys  direct  from  Christ,  and  heard  confessions  and  imposed  pen- 
ance. Their  antisacerdotahsm  was  strongly  expressed  in  the  sim- 
plification of  their  faith.  There  was  no  purgatory,  and  conse- 
quently masses  for  the  dead  or  the  invocation  of  the  suffrages  of 
the  saints  were  of  no  avail;  the  saints,  in  fact,  neither  heard  nor 
helped  man,  and  the  miracles  performed  in  their  name  in  the 
churches  were  fictitious.  The  fasts  and  feasts  prescribed  in  the 
calendar  were  not  to  be  observed,  and  the  indulgences  so  lavishly 
sold  were  useless.  As  of  old,  oaths  and  homicide  were  forbidden. 
Yet  enough  of  the  traditional  ascetic  tendencies  were  preserved 
to  lead  to  the  existence  of  a  monastic  fraternity  whose  members 
divested  themselves  of  all  individual  property,  and  promised  chas- 
tity, with  obedience  to  a  superior.  Bernard  Gui  refers,  with  a 
brevity  which  shows  how  little  importance  he  attached  to  them, 
to  stories  about  sexual  abominations  performed  in  nocturnal  as- 
semblies, and  he  indicates  the  growth  of  popular  superstition  by  a 
brief  allusion  to  a  dog  which  appears  in  these  gatherings  and 
sprinkles  the  sectaries  with  his  tail.'* 

The  non-resistance  doctrines  of  the  Waldenses  rendered  them, 
as  a  rule,  a  comparatively  easy  prey,  but  human  nature  sometimes 
asserted  itself,  and  a  sharp  persecution  carried  on  at  this  period 
by  Frere  Jacques  Bernard,  Inquisitor  of  Provence,  provoked  a 
bloody  reprisal.  In  1321  he  sent  two  deputies  —  Freres  Catalan 
Fabri  and  Pierre  Paschal — to  the  diocese  of  Valence  to  make  in- 


*  Bernard.  Guidon.  Practica  P.  v.  (Doat,  XXX.). 


THE    WALDENSES.  151 

quisition  there.  Former  raids  had  left  the  people  in  an  angry  mood. 
Multitudes  had  been  subjected  to  the  humiliation  of  crosses,  and 
these  and  their  friends  vowed  revenge  on  the  appearance  of  the 
new  persecutors.  A  plot  was  rapidly  formed  to  assassinate  the 
inquisitors  at  a  village  where  they  were  to  pass  the  night.  For 
some  reason,  however,  they  changed  their  plans,  and  passed  on  to 
the  Priory  of  Montoison.  The  conspirators  followed  them,  broke 
down  the  doors,  and  slew  them.  Strangely  enough,  the  Prior  of 
Montoison  was  accused  of  comphcity  in  the  murder,  and  was  ar- 
rested when  the  mm'derers  were  seized.  Tlie  bodies  of  the  mar- 
tyrs were  solemnly  buried  in  the  Franciscan  convent  at  Yalence, 
where  they  soon  began  to  manifest  their  sanctity  in  miracles,  and 
they  would  have  been  canonized  by  John  XXII.  had  not  the 
quarrel  which  soon  afterwards  sprang  up  between  him  and  the 
Franciscans  rendered  it  impolitic  for  him  to  increase  the  number 
of  Franciscan  saints.* 

A  few  Waldenses  appear  in  the  prosecutions  of  Henri  de  Cha- 
may  of  Carcassonne  in  1328  and  1329,  and,  from  the  occasional 
notices  which  have  reached  us  in  the  succeeding  years,  we  may 
conclude  that  persecution,  more  or  less  fitful,  never  whoUy  ceased ; 
while,  in  spite  of  this,  the  heresy  kept  constantly  growing.  After 
the  disappearance  of  Catharism,  indeed,  it  was  the  only  refuge  for 
ordinary  humanity  when  dissatisfied  with  Eome.  The  Beggliards 
were  mystics  whose  speculations  were  attractive  only  to  a  certain 
order  of  minds.  The  Spirituals  and  FraticeUi  were  Franciscan  as- 
cetics. The  Waldenses  sought  only  to  restore  Christianity  to  its 
simphcity;  their  doctrines  could  be  understood  by  the  poor  and 
iUiterate,  groaning  under  the  burdens  of  sacerdotalism,  and  the}'^ 
found  constantly  wider  acceptance  among  the  people,  in  spite  of 
aU  the  efforts  put  forth  by  the  waning  power  of  the  Inquisition. 
Benedict  XII.,  in  1335,  summoned  Humbert  II.,  Dauphin  of  Yien- 
nois,  and  Adhemar  of  Poitou  to  assist  the  inquisitors.  Humbert 
obeyed,  and  from  1336  to  13-16  there  were  expeditions  sent  against 
them  which  drove  them  from  their  homes  and  captured  some  of 
them.  Of  these  a  portion  abjured  and  the  rest  were  burned ;  their 
possessions  were  confiscated  and  the  bones  of  the  dead  exhumed. 
The  secular  and  ecclesiastical  officials  of  Embrun  joined  in  these 


*  Wadding,  aim.  1321,  No.  21-4. 


152  FRANCE. 

efforts,  but  they  had  no  permanent  result.  In  Languedoc  Frere 
Jean  Dumoulin,  Inquisitor  of  Toulouse,  in  1344  attacked  them 
vigorously,  but  only  succeeded  in  scattering  them  throughout 
Beam,  Foix,  and  Aragon.  In  1348  Clement  VI.  again  urged 
Humbert,  who  responded  Avith  strict  orders  to  his  officers  to  aid 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  with  what  force  might  be  necessary, 
and  this  time  we  hear  of  twelve  Waldenses  brought  to  Embrun, 
and  burned  on  the  square  in  front  of  the  cathedral.  When  Dau- 
phine  became  a  possession  of  the  crown  the  royal  officials  were 
equally  ready  to  assist.  Letters  of  October  20,  1351,  from  the 
governor,  order  the  authorities  of  Briancon  to  give  the  inquisitor 
armed  support  in  his  operations  against  the  heretics  of  the  Brian- 
connais,  but  this  seems  to  have  been  ineffective ;  and  the  next  year 
Clement  VI.  appealed  to  the  Dauphin  Charles,  and  to  Louis  and 
Joanna  of  l^aples,  to  aid  Frere  Pierre  Dumont,  the  Inquisitor  of 
Provence,  and  summoned  prelates  and  magistrates  to  co-operate 
in  the  good  work.  The  only  recorded  result  of  this  was  the  pen- 
ancing of  seven  "Waldenses  by  Dumont  in  1353.  More  successful 
w^ere  the  Christian  labors  of  Guillaume  de  Bordes,  Archbishop  of 
Embrun  from  1352  to  1363,  surnamed  the  Apostle  of  the  Walden- 
ses, who  tried  the  unusual  expedient  of  kindness  and  persuasion. 
He  personally  visited  the  mountain  vaUeys,  and  had  the  satisfac- 
tion of  winning  over  a  number  of  the  heretics.  With  his  death 
his  methods  were  abandoned,  and  Urban  Y.,  from  1363  to  1365, 
was  earnest  in  caUhig  upon  the  ci\^l  power  and  in  stimulating  the 
zeal  of  the  Provencal  inquisitors,  Freres  Hugues  Cardihon  and 
Jean  Richard.  The  celebrated  inquisitor  Frangois  Borel  now 
appears  upon  the  scene.  Armed  expeditions  were  sent  into  the 
mountains  which  had  considerable  success.  Many  of  the  heretics 
were  obstinate  and  were  burned,  while  others  saved  their  lives  by 
abjuration.  Their  pitiful  little  properties  were  confiscated;  one 
had  a  cow,  another  two  cows  and  clothes  of  white  cloth.  In  the 
purse  of  another,  more  wealth}^,  were  found  two  florins  —  a  booty 
which  scarce  proved  profitable,  for  the  wood  to  burn  him  and  a 
comrade  cost  sixty-two  sols  and  six  deniers.  One  woman  named 
Juven  who  was  burned  possessed  a  vineyard.  The  vintage  was 
gathered  and  the  must  stored  in  her  cabin,  when  the  wrathful 
neighbors  fired  it  at  night  and  destroyed  the  product.* 

*  Arch,  de  I'lnq.  de  Carcass.  (Doat,  XXVII.  119  sqq.). — Raynald.  ann.  1335, 


THE    WALDENSES.  153 

All  this  was  of  no  avail.  When  Gregory  XI.  ascended  the  pon- 
tifical throne,  in  13Y0,  his  attention  was  early  directed  to  the  de- 
plorable condition  of  the  Church  in  Provence,  Dauphine,  and  the 
Lyonnais.  The  whole  region  was  full  of  Waldenses,  and  many 
nobles  were  now  beginning  to  embrace  the  heresy.  The  prelates 
were  powerless  or  negUgent,  and  the  Inquisition  ineffective.  He 
set  to  work  vigorously,  appointing  inquisitors  and  stimulating  their 
zeal,  but  the  whole  system  by  this  tune  was  so  discredited  that  his 
labors  were  ineffectual.  The  royal  officials,  so  far  from  aiding  the 
inquisitors,  had  no  scruple  in  impeding  them.  Unsafe  places  were 
assigned  to  them  in  which  to  conduct  their  operations ;  they  were 
forced  to  permit  secular  judges  to  act  as  assessors  with  them ;  their 
proceedings  were  submitted  for  revision  to  the  secular  courts,  and 
even  their  prisoners  were  set  at  liberty  without  consulting  them. 
The  secular  officials  refused  to  take  oaths  to  purge  the  land  of 
heresy,  and  openly  protected  heretics,  especially  nobles,  when 
prosecutions  were  commenced  against  them.* 

Gregory  duly  complained  of  this  to  Charles  le  Sage  in  1373, 
but  to  little  purpose  at  first.  The  evil  continued  unabated,  and  in 
13Y5  he  returned  to  the  charge  still  more  vigorously.  No  stone 
was  left  unturned.  Not  only  was  the  king  requested  to  send  a 
special  deputy  to  the  infected  district,  but  the  pope  wrote  directly 
to  the  royal  lieutenant,  Charles  de  Banville,  reproaching  him  for 
his  protection  of  heretics,  and  threatening  him  if  he  did  not  mend 
his  ways.  Certain  nobles  who  had  become  conspicuous  as  favorers 
of  heresy  were  significantly  reminded  of  the  fate  of  Raymond  of 
Toulouse ;  the  prelates  were  scolded  and  stimulated ;  Amedeo  of 
Savoy  was  summoned  to  ;;ssist,  and  the  Tarantaise  was  added  to 
the  district  of  Provence  that  nothing  might  interfere  with  the  i)ro- 
jected  campaign.  As  the  spread  of  heresy  was  attributable  to  the 
lack  of  preachers,  and  to  the  neglect  of  prelates  and  clergy  in  in- 
structing their  flocks,  the  inquisitor  was  empowered  to  call  in  the 
services  of  Dominicans,  Franciscans,  Carmelites,  and  Augustinians, 
to  spread  over  the  land  and  teach  the  people  the  truths  of  religion. 

No.  63;  1344,  No.  9;  1352,  No.  20.  —  Chabrand,  op.  cit.  pp.  36-7.  — Wadding 
ann.  1353,  No.  14,  15;  1363,  No.  14,  15;  1364,  No.  14,  15;  1365,  No.  3.— Lom- 
bard, Pierre  Valdo  et  les  Vaudois  du  Brian^onnais,  Geneve,  1880,  pp.  17,  20, 
23-7. 

•  Raynald.  ann.  1372,  No.  34 ;  ann.  1373,  No.  19. 


154  FRANCE. 

These  multiplied  efforts  at  length  began  to  tell.  Charles  issued 
orders  to  enforce  the  laws  against  heresy,  and  when  Gregory  sent 
a  special  Apostolic  Internuncio,  Antonio,  Bishop  of  Massa,  to  direct 
operations,  persecution  began  in  earnest.  Frere  Frangois  Borel, 
the  Inquisitor  of  Provence,  had  long  been  struggling  against  the 
indifference  of  the  prelates  and  the  hostility  of  the  secular  power. 
Now  that  he  was  sure  of  efficient  seconding  he  was  Uke  a  hound 
shpped  from  the  leash.  His  forays  against  the  miserable  popula- 
tions of  Freyssinieres,  I'Argentiere,  and  Val-Pute  (or  Val-Louise) 
have  conferred  on  him  a  sinister  reputation,  unredeemed  by  the 
efficient  aid  which  he  contributed  to  regaining  the  liberties  of  his 
native  town  of  Gap.* 

The  immediate  success  which  rewarded  these  efforts  was  so 
overwhelming  as  to  bring  new  cause  for  solicitude.  The  Bishop 
of  Massa's  mission  commenced  early  in  May,  1375,  and  already,  by 
June  17,  Gregory  is  concerned  about  the  housing  and  support  of 
the  crowds  of  wretches  who  had  been  captured.  In  spite  of  nu- 
merous burnings  of  those  who  proved  obstinate,  the  prisons  of  the 
land  were  insufficient  for  the  detention  of  the  captives,  and  Gregory 
at  once  ordered  new  and  strong  ones  to  be  built  in  Embrun,  Avi- 
gnon, and  Yienne.  To  solve  the  financial  comphcations  which  im- 
mediately arose,  the  bishops,  whose  negligence  w^as  accountable  for 
the  growth  of  heresy,  were  summoned  within  three  months  to  fur- 
nish four  thousand  gold  florins  to  build  the  prisons,  and  eight 
hundred  florins  per  annum  for  five  years  for  the  support  of  the 
prisoners.  This  they  were  allowed  to  take  from  the  legacies  for 
pious  uses,  and  the  restitutions  of  wrongly-acquired  funds,  with  a 
threat,  if  they  should  demur,  that  they  should  be  deprived  of  these 
sources  of  income  and  be  excommunicated  besides.  The  bishops, 
however,  were  no  more  amenable  to  such  arguments  than  those 
of  Languedoc  had  been  in  1245,  and,  after  the  three  months  had 
passed,  Gregory  answers,  October  5,  the  anxious  inquiry  of  the 
Bishop  of  Massa  as  to  how  he  shaU  feed  his  prisoners,  by  teUing 
him  that  it  is  the  business  of  every  bishop  to  support  those  of  his 
diocese,  and  that  any  one  who  refuses  to  do  so  is  to  be  coerced  with 
excommunication  and  the  secular  arm.     This  was  a  mere  hrutum 


*  Wadding,  aun.  1375,  No.  11-19.— D'Argentre,  op.  cit.  I.  i.  394.— Ripoll  II. 
289.— Raynald.  ann.  1375,  No.  36.— Gautier,  Hist,  de  la  Ville  de  Gap,  p.  39. 


THE   WALDENSES.  155 

fulmen,  Sind  in  1376  he  endeavored  to  secure  a  share  in  the  con- 
fiscations, but  King  Charles  refused  to  divide  thorn,  though  in  1878 
he  at  last  agreed  to  give  the  inquisitors  a  yearly  stipend  for  their 
own  support,  similar  to  that  paid  to  their  brethren  at  Toulouse.* 

All  other  devices  being  exhausted,  Gregory  at  last  had  recourse 
to  the  unfailing  resource  of  the  curia — an  indulgence.  There  is 
something  so  appallingly  grotesque  in  tearing  honest,  industrious 
folk  from  their  homes  by  the  thousand,  in  thrusting  them  into 
dungeons  to  rot  and  starve,  and  then  evading  the  cost  of  feeding 
them  by  presenting  them  to  the  faithful  as  objects  of  charity,  that 
the  proclamation  which  Gregory  issued  August  15,  1376,  is  per- 
haps the  most  shameless  monument  of  a  shameless  age — 

"To  all  the  faithful  in  Christ:  As  the  help  of  prisoners  is  counted  among 
pious  works,  it  befits  the  piety  of  the  faithful  to  mercifully  assist  the  incarcerated 
of  all  kinds  who  suffer  from  poverty.  As  we  learn  that  our  beloved  son,  the  In- 
quisitor Fran9ois  Borelli,  has  imprisoned  for  safe-keeping  or  punishment  many 
heretics  and  those  defamed  for  heresy,  who  in  consequence  of  their  poverty  can- 
not be  sustained  in  prison  unless  the  pious  liberality  of  the  faithful  shall  assist 
them  as  a  work  of  charity ;  and  as  we  wish  that  these  prisoners  shall  not  starve, 
but  shall  have  time  for  repentance  in  the  said  prisons;  now,  in  order  that  the 
faithful  in  Christ  may  througli  devotion  lend  a  helping  hand,  we  admonish,  ask, 
and  exhort  you  all,  enjoining  it  on  you  in  remission  of  your  sins,  that  from  the 
goods  which  God  has  given  you,  you  bestow  pious  alms  and  grateful  charity  for 
the  food  of  these  prisoners,  so  that  they  may  be  sustained  by  your  help,  and  you, 
through  this  and  other  good  works  inspired  by  God,  may  attain  eternal  blessed- 
ness 1"  t 

Imagination  refuses  to  picture  the  horrors  of  the  economically 
constructed  jails  where  these  unfortunates  were  crowded  to  wear 
out  their  dreary  hves,  while  their  jailers  vainly  begged  for  the 
miserable  pittance  that  should  prolong  their  agonies.  Yet  so  far 
was  Gregory  from  being  satisfied  with  victims  in  number  far 
beyond  his  ability  to  keep,  that,  December  28,  1375,  he  bitterly 
scolded  the  officials  of  Dauphine  for  the  negligent  manner  in  which 
they  obeyed  the  king's  commands  to  aid  the  inquisitors — a  com- 
plaint which  he  reiterated  May  18,  1376.  From  some  expressions 
in  these  letters  it  is  permissible  to  assume  that  this  whole  inhuman 


*  Lombard,  op.  cit.  pp.  27-8.— Wadding,  ann.  1375,  No.  21-3.— Isambert,  Auc. 
LoixFran9.  IV.491. 

t  Wadding,  ann.  1376,  No.  3. 


156  FRANCE. 

business  had  shocked  even  the  dull  sensibilities  of  that  age  of  vio- 
lence. Yet  in  spite  of  all  that  had  been  accomplished  the  heretics 
remained  obstinate,  and  in  1377  Gregory  indignantly  chronicles 
their  increase,  while  reproaching  the  inquisitors  with  their  slack- 
ness in  performing  the  duties  for  which  they  had  been  appointed.* 

What  effect  on  the  future  of  the  Waldenses  a  continuance  of 
Gregory's  remorseless  energy  would  have  wrought  can  only  be 
matter  of  conjecture.  He  died  March  27,  1378,  and  the  Great 
Schism  which  speedily  followed  gave  the  heretics  some  rehef,  dur- 
ing which  they  continued  to  increase,  although  in  1380  Clement 
YII.  renewed  the  commission  of  Borel,  whose  activity  was  un- 
abated until  1393,  and  his  victims  were  numbered  by  the  hundred. 
A  good  many  conversions  rewtarded  his  labors,  and  the  converts 
were  allowed  to  retain  their  property  on  payment  of  a  certain 
sum  of  money,  as  shown  by  a  list  made  out  in  1385.  In  1393  he 
is  said  to  have  burned  a  hundred  and  fifty  at  Grenoble  in  a  single 
day.  San  Vicente  Ferrer  was  a  missionary  of  a  different  stamp, 
and  his  self -devoted  labors  for  several  years  in  the  Waldensian 
valleys  won  over  numerous  converts.  His  memory  is  stiU  cher- 
ished there,  and  the  village  of  Puy-Saint-Yincent,  with  a  chapel 
dedicated  to  him,  shows  that  his  kindly  ministrations  were  not 
altogether  lost.f 

The  Waldenses  by  this  time  were  substantially  the  only  heretics 
with  whom  the  Church  had  to  deal  outside  of  Germany.  The 
French  version  of  the  Schwabe^isjnegel,  or  South  German  municipal 
code,  made  for  the  Romande  speaking  provinces  of  the  empire,  is 
assignable  to  the  closing  years  of  the  century,  and  it  attests  the 
predominance  of  Waldensianism  in  its  chapter  on  heresy,  by  trans- 
lating the  Kdczer  (Catharus)  of  the  original  by  vaudois.  Even 
"  Leschandus  "  (Childeric  III.)  is  said  to  have  been  dethroned  by 
Pope  Zachary  because  he  was  a  protector  of  vaudois.  That  at 
this  period  the  Inquisition  had  become  inoperative  in  those  regions 
where  it  had  once  been  so  busy  is  proved  by  the  episcopal  tribunals 
being  alone  referred  to  as  having  cognizance  of  such  cases — the 


*  Wadding,  ann.  1375,  No.  34;  ann,  1376,  No.  3.— Arch,  de  I'lnq.  de  Carcasi. 
(Doat,  XXXV.  163). 

t  Perrin's  Waldenses,  translated  by  Lennard,  London,  1624,  Bk.  2  pp.  18,  It. — 
Leger,  Hist,  des  ^glises  Vaudoises  II.  26. — Cliabrand,  op.  cit.  pp.  39,  40. 


THE   WALDENSES.  I57 

tieretic  is  to  be  accused  to  his  bishop,  who  is  to  have  him  examined 
by  experts.^ 

How  completely  the  Waldenses  dropped  out  of  sight  in  the 
struggles  of  the  Great  Schism  is  seen  in  a  bull  of  Alexander  V., 
in  1409,  to  Frcre  Pons  Feugeyron,  whose  enormous  district  ex- 
tended from  Marseilles  to  Lyons  and  from  Beaucaire  to  the  Val 
d'Aosta.  This  comprehended  the  whole  district  Avhich  Francois 
Borel  and  Vicente  Ferrer  found  swarming  with  heretics.  The  in- 
quisitor is  urged  to  use  his  utmost  endeavors  against  the  schismatic 
followers  of  Benedict  XIIL  and  Gregory  XII,,  against  the  increas- 
ing numbers  of  sorcerers,  against  apostate  Jews  and  the  Talmud, 
but  not  a  word  is  said  about  Waldenses.  They  seem  to  have  been 
completely  forgotten,  f 

After  the  Church  had  reorganized  itself  at  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance it  had  leisure  to  look  after  the  interests  of  the  faith,  although 
its  energies  were  mostly  monopohzed  by  the  Hussite  troubles. 
In  1417  we  hear  of  Catharine  Sauve,  an  anchorite,  burned  at  Mont- 
peUier  for  Waldensian  doctrines  by  the  deputy  -  inquisitor,  Frere 
Raymond  Cabasse,  assisted  by  the  Bishop  of  Maguelonne.  The 
absence  of  persecution  had  by  no  means  been  caused  by  a  diminu- 
tion in  the  number  of  heretics.  In  1432  the  Council  of  Boursres 
complained  that  the  Waldenses  of  Dauphine  had  taxed  themselves 
to  send  money  to  the  Hussites,  whom  they  recognized  as  brethren ; 
and  there  were  plenty  of  them  to  be  found  by  any  one  who  took 
the  trouble  to  look  after  them.  On  August  23,  of  this  same  year, 
we  have  a  letter  from  Frere  Pierre  Fabri,  Inquisitor  of  Embrun,  to 
the  Council  of  Basle,  excusing  himself  for  not  immediately  obey- 
ing a  summons  to  attend  it  on  the  ground  of  his  indescribable 
poverty,  and  of  his  preoccupations  in  persecuting  the  Waldenses. 
In  spite  of  the  great  executions  which  he  had  already  made,  he 
describes  them  as  flourishing  as  numerously  as  ever  in  the  valleys 
of  Freyssinieres,  Argentiere,  and  Pute,  which  had  been  almost  de- 
populated by  the  ferocious  raids  of  Frangois  Borel.  He  now  has  in 
his  dungeons  of  Embrun  and  Briangon  six  relapsed  heretics,  Avho 
have  revealed  to  him  the  names  of  more  than  five  hundred  others 
whom  he  is  about  to  seize,  and  whose  trials  wiU  be  a  work  of  time, 


*  Miroir  de  Souabe,  ch.  89  (Ed.  Matile,  Neuchatel,  1843). 
t  Wadding,  arm.  1409,  No.  12. 


158  FRANCE. 

but  as  soon  as  he  can  absent  himself  without  prejudice  to  the 
faith  his  (ii'st  duty  will  be  to  attend  the  council.  Evidently  the 
harvest  was  abundant  and  the  reapers  were  few.* 

In  l-i-il  the  Inquisitor  of  Provence,  Jean  Yoyle,  made  some 
effort  at  persecution,  but  apparently  with  little  result,  and  the 
Waldensian  churches  seem  to  have  enjoyed  a  long  respite,  for 
the  terrible  episode  of  the  so-called  Yaudois  of  Arras,  in  1460,  as 
we  shall  see  hereafter,  was  merely  a  delirium  of  witchcraft.  In 
France,  so  completely  had  the  Waldenses  monopolized  the  field 
of  misbelief  in  the  public  mind  that  sorcery  became  popularly 
known  as  vauderie  and  witches  as  vaudoises.  Accordingly,  when, 
in  1465,  at  LiUe,  five  "  Poor  Men  of  Lyons  "  were  tried,  and  four 
of  them  recanted  and  one  was  burned,  it  was  necessary  to  find 
some  other  name  for  them,  and  they  were  designated  as  Turelu- 
pins.f 

It  is  not  until  14Y5  that  we  find  the  inquisitors  again  at  work 
in  their  old  hunting-ground  among  the  valleys  around  the  head- 
waters of  the  Durance.  The  Waldenses  had  quietly  multiplied 
again.  They  held  their  conventicles  undisturbed,  they  dared 
openly  to  preach  their  abhorred  faith,  and  their  missionary  zeal 
was  rewarded  with  abundant  conversions.  Worse  than  all,  when 
the  bishops  and  inquisitors  sought  to  repress  them  in  the  accus- 
tomed manner,  they  appealed  to  the  royal  court,  which  was  so  un- 
true to  its  duty  that  it  granted  them  letters  of  protection  and  they 
waxed  more  insolent  than  ever.  In  vain  Sixtus  lY.  sent  special 
commissions  armed  with  full  powers  to  put  an  end  to  this  disgrace- 
ful state  of  things.  Men  at  this  time  in  France  recked  little  of 
papal  authority,  and  the  commissioners  found  themselves  scorned. 
Sixtus,  therefore,  July  1, 1475,  addressed  an  earnest  remonstrance 
to  Louis  XL  The  king  was  surely  ignorant  of  the  acts  of  his 
representatives ;  he  would  hasten  to  disavow  them  and  lend  the 


*  Mary-Lafon,  Hist,  du  raidi  de  la  France,  III.  384.— C.  Bituricens.  ann.  1432 
(Harduin.  VIII.  1459).— Martcne  Ampl.  Coll.  VII.  161-3. 

t  Leger,  Hist,  des  l^glises  vaudoises,  II.  24. — Duverger,  La  Vuuderie  dans  les 
!&tats  de  Philippe  le  Bon,  Arras,  1885,  p.  112. 

Even  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Robert  Gaguin,  in  speaking 
of  riding  on  a  broomstick  and  worshipping  Satan,  adds  "  quod  impietatis  genus 
Valdensium  esse  dicitur  "  (Rer.  Gallican.  Annal.  Lib.  x.  p.  242.  Francof  ad  M. 
1587). 


THE    WALDENSES.  I59 

whole  power  of  the  State,  as  of  old,  to  the  support  of  the  Inqui- 
sition.* 

The  correspondence  which  ensued  would  doubtless  be  interest- 
ing reading  if  it  were  accessible.  Its  purport,  however,  can  read- 
ily be  discerned  in  the  Ordonnance  of  May  18, 1478,  which  marks 
in  the  most  emphatic  manner  the  supremacy  which  the  State  had 
obtained  over  the  Church.  The  king  assumed  that  his  subjects  of 
Dauphine  were  all  good  Catholics.  In  a  studied  tone  of  contemp- 
tuous insolence  he  alludes  to  the  old  Mendicants  {meiix  mendiens) 
styhng  themselves  inquisitors,  who  vex  the  faithful  with  accusa- 
tions of  heresy  and  harass  them  with  prosecutions  in  the  royal 
and  ecclesiastical  courts  for  purposes  of  extortion  or  to  secure  the 
confiscation  of  their  property.  He  therefore  forbids  his  officers  to 
aid  in  making  such  confiscations,  decrees  that  the  heirs  shall  be  re- 
instated in  all  cases  that  have  occurred,  and  in  order  to  put  a  stop 
to  the  frauds  and  abuses  of  the  inquisitors  he  strictly  enjoins  that 
for  the  future  they  shaU  not  be  permitted  to  prosecute  the  inhabi- 
tants in  any  manner,  f 

Such  was  the  outcome  of  the  efforts  which,  for  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years,  the  Church  had  unremittingly  made  to  obtain  des- 
potic control  over  the  human  mind.  For  far  less  tlian  such  defi- 
ance it  had  destroyed  Raymond  of  Toulouse  and  the  civilization 
of  Languedoc.  It  had  built  up  the  monarchy  with  the  spoils  of 
heresy,  and  now  the  monarchy  cuffed  it  and  bade  it  bury  its  In- 
quisition out  of  the  sight  of  decent  men.  This  put  an  end  for  a 
time  to  the  labors  of  the  Inquisition  against  the  Waldenses  of 
Dauphine,  but  the  troubles  of  the  latter  were  by  no  means  over. 
The  death  of  Louis,  in  1483,  deprived  them  of  their  })7'otector,  and 
the  Italian  policy  of  Charles  VIII.  rendered  him  less  indifferent 
to  the  wishes  of  the  Holy  See.  At  the  request  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Embrun,  Innocent  YIII.  ordered  the  persecutions  renewed. 
The  Franciscan  Inquisitor,  Jean  Veyleti,  whose  excesses  had 
caused  the  appeal  to  the  throne  in  1475,  was  soon  again  at  work, 
and  had  the  satisfaction  of  burning  both  consuls  of  Freyssinieres. 
Though  the  Waldenses  had  represented  themselves  to  Louis  XL 
as  faithful  Cathohcs,  the  ancient  errors  were  readily  brought  to 


*  Martene  Ampl.  Collect.  II.  1506-7. 
t  Isambert,  Anc.  Loix  Fran9.  X.  793^. 


160  FRANCE. 

light  by  the  efficient  means  of  torture.  Though  they  believed  in 
transubstantiation,  tliey  denied  that  it  could  be  effected  l)y  sinful 
priests.  Their  ha/rbes,  or  pastors,  were  ordained,  and  administered 
absolution  after  confession,  but  the  pope,  the  bishops,  and  the 
priests  had  lost  tliat  power.  They  denied  the  existence  of  purga- 
tory, the  utility  of  prayers  for  the  dead,  the  intercession  of  saints, 
the  power  of  the  Virgin,  and  the  obligation  of  keeping  any  feast- 
days  save  Sunday.  Wearied  with  their  stubbornness,  the  arch- 
bishop, in  June  and  July,  1486,  summoned  them  either  to  leave  the 
country  or  to  come  forward  and  submit,  and  as  they  did  neither 
he  excommunicated  them.  This  was  equally  ineffective,  and  he 
appealed  again  to  Innocent  VIII.,  who  resolved  to  end  the  heresy 
with  a  decisive  blow.  Accordingly,  in  1488,  a  crusade  on  a  large 
scale  was  organized  in  both  Dauphine  and  Savoy.  The  papal 
commissioner,  Alberto  de'  Capitanei,  obtained  the  assistance  of  the 
Parlement  of  Grenoble,  and  a  force  was  raised  under  the  command 
of  Hugues  de  La  Palu,  Comte  de  Vanax,  to  attack  them  on  every 
side.  The  attack  was  delayed  by  legal  formalities,  during  which 
they  were  urged  to  submission,  but  refused,  saying  that  their  faith 
was  pure  and  that  they  would  die  rather  than  abandon  it.  At 
length,  in  March,  1489,  the  crusaders  advanced.  The  valley  of 
Pragelato  was  the  first  assailed,  and,  after  a  few  days,  was  reduced 
to  the  alternative  of  death  or  abjuration,  when  fifteen  obstinate 
heretics  were  burned.  In  Val  Cluson  and  Freyssinieres  the  resist- 
ance was  more  stubborn  and  there  was  considerable  carnage,  which 
so  frightened  the  inhabitants  of  Argentiere  that  they  submitted 
peaceably.  In  Val  Louise  the  people  took  refuge  in  the  cavern  of 
Aigue  Fraide,  which  they  imagined  inaccessible,  but  La  Palu  suc- 
ceeded in  reaching  it,  and  built  fires  in  the  mouth,  suffocating  the 
unhappy  refugees.  This,  and  the  confiscations  which  followed, 
divided  between  Charles  VIII.  and  the  Archbishop  of  Embrun, 
gave  a  fatal  blow  to  Waldensianism  in  the  vaUeys.  To  prevent 
its  resuscitation  the  legate  left  behind  him  Francois  Ploireri  as 
Inquisitor  of  Provence,  who  continued  to  harass  the  people  with 
citations  and  pronounced  condemnations  for  contumacy,  burning 
an  occasional  hai^he  and  confiscating  the  property  of  relapsed  and 
hardened  heretics.* 


•  Chabrand,  op.  cit.  pp.  43,  48-53,  70.— Herzog,  Die  romanischen  Waldenser 


THE    WALDENSES.  161 

With  a  new  king,  in  the  person  of  Louis  XII.,  there  came  a 
new  phase  in  the  affairs  of  the  Waldenses.  A  conference  was  held 
in  Paris  before  the  royal  chancellor,  where  envoys  from  Freys- 
sinieres  met  Rostain,  the  new  Archbishop  of  Embrun,  and  deputies 
of  the  Parlement  of  Grenoble.  It  was  resolved  to  send  to  the 
spot  papal  and  royal  commissioners,  with  power  to  determine  the 
status  of  the  so-caUed  heretics.  They  went  to  Freyssinieres  and 
examined  witnesses,  who  satisfied  them  that  the  population  were 
good  Cathohcs,  in  spite  of  the  urgent  assertions  of  the  archbishop 
that  they  were  notorious  heretics.  All  the  excommunications  were 
removed,  which  put  an  end  to  the  prosecutions.  On  October  12, 
1502,  Louis  XII.  confirmed  the  decision,  and  Alexander  VI.,  to 
whose  son,  Caesar  Borgia,  Louis  had  given  the  Duchy  of  Valenti- 
nois,  embracing  the  territory  in  question,  ^vas  not  disposed  to  run 
counter  to  the  royal  wishes.  The  Waldenses  were,  however,  un- 
able to  loosen  the  grip  of  the  Archbishop  of  Embrun  on  the  prop- 
erty which  he  had  confiscated,  in  spite  of  positive  orders  for  its 
restoration  from  the  king,  but  at  least  they  were  allowed,  under 
the  guise  of  Cathohcism,  to  worship  God  after  their  own  fashion, 
until  the  crowding  pressure  of  the  Reformation  forced  them  to  a 
merger  with  the  Calvinists.  In  the  Brianconnais,  in  spite  of 
occasional  burnings,  heresy  continued  to  spread  until,  in  1514, 
Antoine  d'Estaing,  Bishop  of  Angouleme,  was  sent  tliither,  when 
the  measures  he  adopted,  vigorously  enforced  by  the  secular 
authorities,  put  an  end  to  it  in  a  few  years.* 


pp.  277-82.— D'Argentrfe  1. 1.  105.— Leger,  Hist,  des  flglises  Vaudoises  H.  23-5. — 
Filippo  de  Boni,  I  Calabro-Valdesi  p.  71.— Comba,  Histoire  des  Vaudois  d'ltalie, 
Paris,  1887,  I.  160-66,  169. 

Tlie  Waldensian  legend  relates  that  in  the  cavetn  of  Aigue-Fraide  the  num- 
ber of  victims  was  three  tiiousand,  of  whom  four  hundred  were  children,  but  I 
think  that  M.  Cliabrand  has  sufficiently  demonstrated  its  exaggerated  improba- 
bility (Op.  cit.  pp.  53-9). 

*  Herzog,  op.  cit.  pp.  283-5. — Perrin,  Hist.  Waldens.  B.  ii.  ch.  3. — Chabrand, 
op.  cit.  pp.  73-4. 

IL— 11 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  SPANISH  PENINSULA. 

The  kingdom  of  Aragon,  stretching  across  both  sides  of  the 
Pyrenees,  with  a  population  kindred  in  blood  and  speech  to  that 
of  Mediterranean  France,  was  particularly  hable  to  inroads  of  her- 
esy from  the  latter.  The  Counts  of  Barcelona  had  been  Carlo- 
vingian  vassals,  and  even  owned  a  shadowy  allegiance  to  the  first 
Capetians.  We  have  seen  how  ready  were  Pedro  II.  and  his  suc- 
cessors to  aid  in  resisting  Prankish  encroachments,  even  at  the 
cost  of  encouraging  heresy,  and  it  was  inevitable  that  schismatic 
missions  should  be  estabhshed  in  populous  centres  such  as  Barce- 
lona, and  that  heretics,  when  hard-pressed,  should  seek  refuge  in 
the  mountains  of  Cerdana  and  Urgel.  In  spite  of  this,  however, 
heresy  never  obtained  to  the  west  of  the  Pyrenees  the  foothold 
which  it  enjoyed  to  the  east.  Its  manifestations  there  were  only 
spasmodic,  and  were  suppressed  with  effort  comparatively  slender. 

It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  we  hear  nothing  specifically 
of  the  Cathari  in  Aragon  proper.  Matthew  Paris,  indeed,  teUs  a 
wild  tale  of  how,  in  1234,  they  were  so  numerous  in  the  parts  of 
Spain  that  they  decreed  the  abrogation  of  Christianity,  and  raised 
a  large  army  with  which  they  burned  churches  and  spared  neither 
age  nor  sex,  until  Gregory  IX.  ordered  a  crusade  against  them 
throughout  western  Europe,  when  in  a  stricken  field  they  were 
all  cut  off  to  a  man ;  but  this  may  safely  be  set  down  to  the  imag- 
ination of  some  pilgrim  returning  from  Compostella  and  desiring 
to  repay  a  night's  hospitality  at  St.  Alban's.  In  the  enumeration 
of  Rainerio  Saccone,  about  1250,  there  is  no  mention  of  any  Cath- 
aran  organization  west  of  the  Pyrenees.  That  many  Cathari 
existed  in  Aragon  there  can  be  no  doubt,  but  they  are  never  de- 
scribed as  such,  and  the  only  heretics  of  whom  we  hear  by  name 
are  los  eticabata— the  Insabbatati  or  Waldenses.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  it  was  against  these  that  the  savage  edicts  of  Alonso  II. 


ARAGON.  163 

and  Pedro  11.  were  directed,  towards  the  close  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury.* 

After  this,  for  a  while,  persecution  seems  to  have  slept.  The 
sympathies  and  ambition  of  King  Pedro  were  enlisted  with  Kay- 
mond  of  Toulouse,  and  after  his  fall  at  Muret,  during  the  minority 
of  Jayme  I.,  the  Aragonese  probably  awaited  the  results  of  the 
Albigensian  war  with  feelings  enlisted  in  favor  of  their  race  rather 
than  of  orthodoxy.  As  it  drew  to  a  close,  however,  Don  Jayme, 
in  1226,  issued  an  edict  prohibiting  all  heretics  from  entering  his 
kingdom,  doubtless  moved  thereunto  by  the  numbers  who  sought 
escape  from  the  crusade  of  Louis  VIII.,  and  he  foUowed  this,  in 
1228,  with  another,  depriving  heretics,  with  their  receivers,  fautors, 
and  defenders,  of  the  public  peace.  The  next  step,  we  are  told 
by  the  chroniclers  of  the  Inquisition,  was  taken  in  consequence  of 
the  urgency  of  Kaymond  of  Pennaforte,  the  Dominican  confessor 
of  the  young  king,  who  prevailed  on  him  to  obtain  from  Gregory 
IX.  inquisitors  to  purge  his  land.  This  is  based  on  the  bull  Decli- 
nante,  addressed.  May  26,  1232,  to  Esparrago,  Archbishop  of  Tar- 
ragona, and  his  suffragans,  instructing  them  to  make  inquest  in 
their  dioceses  after  heretics,  either  personally  or  by  Dominicans 
or  other  fitting  persons,  and  to  punish  such  as  might  be  found, 
according  to  the  statutes  recently  issued  by  him  and  by  Annibaldo, 
Senator  of  Rome.  This  doubtless  gave  an  impulse  to  what  f  oUowed, 
but  as  yet  there  was  no  thought  of  a  papal  or  Dominican  Inquisi- 
tion, or  of  adopting  foreign  legislation.  In  the  foUo^ving  year, 
1233,  Don  Jayme  issued  from  Tarragona,  with  the  advice  of  his 
assembled  prelates,  a  statute  on  the  subject,  showing  that  the 
matter  was  regarded  as  pertaining  to  the  State  rather  than  to  the 
Church.  Seigneurs  who  protected  heretics  in  their  lands  forfeited 
them  to  the  lord,  or,  if  aUodial,  to  the  king.  Houses  of  heretics, 
if  allodial,  were  to  be  torn  down ;  if  held  in  fief,  forfeited  to  the 
lord.  All  defamed  or  suspected  of  heresy  were  declared  ineligible 
to  ofBce.  That  the  innocent  might  not  suffer  with  the  guilty,  no 
one  was  to  be  punished  as  a  heretic  or  believer  except  by  his 
bishop  or  such  ecclesiastic  as  had  authority  to  determine  his  guilt. 
Bishops  were  ordered,  when  it  might  seem  expedient  to  them  in 


*  Matt.  Paris  ann.  1234  (p.  270,  Ed.  1644).— Reinerii  Summa  (Martene  Thesaur. 
V.  1767-8). 


1^4  THE    SPANISH    PENINSULA. 

places  suspected  of  heresy,  to  appoint  a  priest  or  clerk,  while  the 
king  or  his  bailli  would  appoint  two  or  three  laymen,  whose  duty 
it  should  be  to  investigate  heretics,  and,  taking  precautions  against 
their  escape,  to  report  them  to  the  bishop  or  to  the  royal  oiRcials, 
or  to  the  lord  of  the  place.  In  this  incongruous  mixture  of  cler- 
ical and  lay  elements  there  may,  it  is  true,  be  discovered  the  germ 
of  an  Inquisition,  but  one  of  a  character  very  different  from  that 
which  was  at  this  time  taking  shape  at  Toulouse.  The  subordi- 
nate position  of  these  so-called  inquisitors  is  seen  in  the  provision 
that  any  negligence  in  the  performance  of  their  functions  was 
punishable,  in  the  case  of  a  clerk,  by  the  loss  of  his  benefice,  in 
that  of  a  layman,  by  a  pecuniary  mulct.* 

To  what  extent  this  crude  expedient  was  put  in  practice  we 
have  no  means  of  knowing,  but  probably  some  attempts  were 
made  which  only  proved  its  inefficiency.  Esparrago  died  soon 
afterwards  and  was  succeeded  in  the  archiepiscopal  seat  of  Tar- 
ragona by  Guillen  Mongriu,  whose  vigorous  and  martial  temper- 
ament was  illustrated  by  his  conquest  of  the  island  of  Iviza. 
Mongriu  speedily  found  that  the  domestic  Inquisition  would  not 
work,  and  applied  for  the  solution  of  some  doubts  to  Gregory, 
who  sent  him,  April  30,  1235,  a  code  of  instructions  drawn  up  by 
Raymond  of  Pennaforte.  About  this  time  we  find  the  first  record 
of  active  work  in  persecution,  which  illustrates  the  absence  of  all 
formal  inquisitorial  procedure.  Robert,  Count  of  RoseUon,  was 
one  of  the  great  feudatories  of  the  crown  of  Aragon.  He  seems 
to  have  been  involved,  as  most  nobles  were,  in  some  disputes  as 
to  fiefs  and  tithes  with  the  Bishop  of  Elne,  whose  diocese  was  in 
his  territories.  The  bishop  accused  him  of  being  the  chief  of  the 
heretics  of  the  region  and  of  using  his  castles  as  a  refuge  for  them. 
AU  this  was  very  likely  true — at  least  the  bishop  had  no  difficulty 
in  finding  witnesses  to  prove  it,  when  Robert  obediently  abjured, 
but  subsequently  relapsed.  Don  Jayme  accordingly  had  him 
arrested  and  imprisoned,  but  Robert  managed  to  escape  and  shut 
himself  in  one  of  his  inaccessible  mountain  strongholds.    His  posi- 


*  Archives  Nat.  de  France,  J.  426,  No.  4.— D'Achery  Spicileg  III.  598.— 
Paramo  de  Orig.  OflSc.  S.  Inquis.  p.  177. — Zurita,  Afiales  de  Aragon,  Lib.  in. 
c.  94.— Ripoll  I.  38.  (Cf.  Llorente,  Ch.  iii.  Art.  i.  No.  3).— Marca  Hispanica, 
pp.  1425-6. 


ARAGON.  165 

tion,  however,  was  desperate,  and  his  lands  liable  to  confiscation ; 
he  therefore  expressed  to  Gregory  IX.  his  desire  to  return  to  the 
bosom  of  the  Church,  and  offered  to  serve  with  his  followers  against 
the  Saracen  as  long  as  the  pope  might  designate.  Gregory  there- 
fore wrote,  February  8,  1237,  to  Eaymond  of  Pennaforte,  that  if 
the  count  would  for  three  years  with  his  subjects  assist  in  the 
conquest  of  Yalencia,  and  give  sufficient  security  that  in  case  of 
relapse  his  territories  should  be  forfeited  to  the  crown,  he  could 
be  absolved.  On  hearing  this  the  good  bishop  hastened  to  the 
papal  court  and  declared  that  if  Robert  was  absolved  he  and  his 
witnesses  would  be  exposed  to  the  imminent  peril  of  death,  and 
that  heresy  would  triumph  in  his  diocese ;  but,  on  receiving  assur- 
ances that  his  fiefs  and  tithes  would  be  taken  care  of,  he  quieted 
down  and  offered  no  further  opposition.* 

Under  the  impulsion  of  Gregory  and  of  Raymond  of  Penna- 
forte, Dominican  inquisitors  had  at  last  been  resorted  to,  and  in 
this  year,  1237,  we  first  become  cognizant  of  them.  In  right  of 
his  wife  Ermessende,  Roger  Bernard  the  Great  of  Foix  was  Yiz- 
conde  of  Castelbo,  a  fief  held  of  the  Bishop  of  Urgel,  with  whom 
he  had  had  a  bitter  war.  He  gave  Castelbo  to  his  son  Roger, 
who,  by  the  advice  of  his  father,  in  1237,  allowed  the  Inquisi- 
tion free  scope  there,  placing  the  castle  in  the  hands  of  Ramon 
Fulco,  Yizconde  of  Cardona,  in  the  name  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Tarragona  and  the  bishops  assembled  at  the  Council  of  Lerida, 
That  council  thereupon  appointed  a  number  of  inquisitors,  includ- 
ing Dominicans  and  Franciscans,  who  made  a  descent  on  Castelbo. 
It  had  long  been  noted  as  a  nest  of  Catharans.  In  1225,  under 
the  protection  of  Arnaldo,  then  lord  of  the  place,  perfected  heretics 
publicly  preached  their  doctrines  there.  In  1234  we  hear  of  a 
heretic  of  Mirepoix  going  thither  to  receive  the  consolamentum 
on  his  death-bed.  The  inquisitors,  therefore,  had  no  difficulty  in 
finding  victims.  They  ordered  two  houses  to  be  destroyed,  ex- 
humed and  burned  the  bones  of  eighteen  persons,  condemned 
as  heretics,  and  carried  off  as  prisoners  some  forty-five  men  and 
women,  condemned  fifteen  who  fled,  and  were  undecided  about 
sundry  others.  Still,  the  Bishop  of  Urgel  was  not  satisfied,  and  he 
gratified  his  rancor  by  condemning  and  excommunicating  Roger 


•  Llorente,  Ch.  ni.  Art.  i.  No.  5.— RipoU  I.  91-2. 


166  THE  SPANISH  PENINSULA. 

Bernard  as  a  defender  of  heretics,  and  it  was  not  until  1240  that 
the  latter,  through  the  intervention  of  the  Archbishop  of  Tarra- 
gona, and  by  submitting,  abjuring  heresy,  and  swearing  to  per- 
form any  penance  assigned  to  him,  procured  from  the  bishop 
absolution  and  a  certificate  that  he  recognized  him  "^>6r  hon  et 
per  leyal  e  per  Catholichr  * 

In  1238  the  Inquisition  of  Aragon  may  be  said  to  be  founded. 
In  April  of  that  year  Gregory  IX.  wrote  to  the  Franciscan  Minis- 
ter and  Dominican  Prior  of  Aragon  deploring  the  spread  of  her- 
esy through  the  whole  kingdom,  so  that  heretics  no  longer  seek 
secrecy,  but  openly  combat  the  Church,  to  the  destruction  of  its 
liberties ;  and  though  this  may  be  an  exaggeration,  we  know  from 
a  confession  before  the  Inquisition  of  Toulouse  that  there  were 
enough  scattered  through  the  land  to  afford  shelter  to  the  wan- 
dering Catharan  missionaries.  Gregory,  therefore,  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  Mendicants  the  sword  of  the  Word  of  God,  which  was 
not  to  be  restrained  from  blood.  They  were  instructed  to  make  dil- 
igent inquisition  against  heresy  and  its  abettors,  proceeding  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  statutes  which  he  had  issued,  and  caUing  in 
when  necessary  the  aid  of  the  secular  arm.  At  the  same  time  he 
made  a  similar  provision  for  Navarre,  which  was  likewise  said  to  be 
swarming  with  heretics,  by  commissioning  as  inquisitors  the  Fran- 
ciscan Guardian  of  Pamplona  and  the  Dominican  Pedro  de  Leo- 
degaria.  As  an  independent  institution  the  Inquisition  of  ISTavarre 
seems  never  to  have  advanced  beyond  an  embryonic  condition. 
In  1246  we  find  Innocent  IV.  writing  to  the  Franciscan  Minis- 
ter there  to  publish  that  Grimaldo  de  la  Mota,  a  citizen  of  Pam- 
plona, is  not  to  be  aspersed  as  a  heretic  because  while  in  Lom- 
bardy  he  had  eaten  and  drunk  with  suspected  persons,  but  this 
is  the  only  evidence  of  vitality  that  I  have  met  with,  and  Na- 
varre was  subsequently  incorporated  into  the  Inquisition  of  Ar- 
agon. f 

In  Aragon  the  institution  gradually  took  shape.  Berenger  de 
Palau,  Bishop  of  Barcelona,  was  busily  engaged  in  organizing  it 


•  Vaissette,  III.  Pr.  383-5,  393-3.— Doat,  XXII.  218;  XXIV.  184. 

t  Wadding,  ann.  1238,  No.  6.  — Doat,  XXIV.  182.  — Pet.  Rodulphii  Hist. 
Seraph.  Lib.  ii.  fol.  385&.— Berger,  Registres  d'Innoc.  IV.  No.  2357.— Monteiro, 
Hist,  da  Inquisi9ao,  P.  i.  Liv.  ii.  ch.  36. 


ARAGON.  167 

throughout  his  diocese  at  the  time  of  his  death  in  1241,  and  the 
vicar,  who  replaced  him  while  the  see  was  vacant,  completed  it. 
Ill  1242  Pedro  Arbalate,  who  had  succeeded  Guillen  Mongriu  as 
archbishop,  with  the  assistance  of  Raymond  of  Pennaforte,  held 
the  Council  of  Tarragona  to  settle  the  details  of  procedure.  Under 
the  guidance  of  so  eminent  a  canonist,  the  code  drawn  up  by  the 
council  showed  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  principles  guiding 
the  Church  in  its  dealings  with  heretics,  and  long  continued  to  be 
referred  to  as  an  authority  not  only  in  Spain,  but  in  France.  At 
the  same  time  its  careful  definitions,  which  render  it  especially 
interesting  to  us,  indicate  that  it  was  prepared  for  the  instruction 
of  a  Church  which  as  yet  practically  knew  nothing  of  the  princi- 
ples of  persecution  firmly  established  elsewhere.  It  was  probably 
under  the  impulse  derived  from  these  movements  that  active  per- 
secution was  resumed  at  Castelbo,  which  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  purified  by  the  raid  of  1237.  This  time  the  heretics  were 
not  as  patient  as  before,  and  resorted  to  poison,  with  which  they 
succeeded  in  taking  off  Fray  Ponce  de  Blanes,  or  de  Espira,  the 
inquisitor,  who  had  made  himself  peculiarly  obnoxious  by  his  vig- 
orous pursuit  of  heresy  for  several  years.  This  aroused  all  the 
martial  instincts  of  the  retired  archbishop,  Guillen  Mongriu, 
who  assembled  some  troops,  besieged  and  took  the  castle,  burned 
many  of  the  heretics,  and  imprisoned  the  rest  for  life.  An  organ- 
ized effort  was  made  to  extend  the  Inquisition  throughout  the 
kingdom,  and  the  parish  priests  were  individually  summoned  to 
lend  it  all  the  aid  in  their  power.  ITrgel  seems  to  have  been  the 
headquarters  of  the  sectaries,  for  subsequently  we  hear  of  their 
sharp  persecution  there  by  the  Dominican  inquisitor,  Bernardo 
Travesser,  and  of  his  martyrdom  by  them.  As  usual,  both  he  and 
Ponce  de  Blanes  shone  forth  in  miracles,  and  have  remained  an 
object  of  worsliip  in  the  Church  of  Urgel,  though  in  1262  the  lat- 
ter was  translated  to  Montpelher,  where  he  lies  magnificently  en- 
tombed.* 

StiU,  the  progress  of  organization  seems  to  have  been  exceed- 
ingly slow.  In  1241  a  case  decided  by  Innocent  lY.  shows  a  com- 
plete absence  of  any  effective  system.     The  Bishop  of  Elne  and  a 


*  Lloreute,  Cli.  in.  Art.  1.  No.  7,  8,  19. — Concil.  Tarraconens.  anu.  1242.— 
Paramo,  pp.  110,  177-8. 


168  THE    SPANISH    PENINSULA. 

Dominican  friar,  acting  as  inquisitors,  had  condemned  Ramon  de 
Malleolis  and  Helena  his  wife  as  heretics.  By  some  means  they 
succeeded  in  appealing  to  Gregory  IX.,  who  referred  the  matter  to 
the  Archdeacon  of  Besalu  and  the  Sacristan  of  Girona.  These 
acquitted  the  culprits  and  restored  them  to  their  possessions ;  but 
the  case  was  carried  back  to  Rome,  and  Innocent  finally  confirmed 
the  first  sentence  of  conviction.  Again,  in  1248,  a  letter  from 
Innocent  lY.  to  the  Bishop  of  Lerida,  instructing  him  as  to  the 
treatment  in  his  diocese  of  heretics  who  voluntarily  return  to  the 
Church,  presupposes  the  absence  of  inquisitors  and  absolute  igno- 
rance as  to  the  fundamental  principles  in  force.  The  power  con- 
ferred the  same  year  on  the  Dominican  Provincial  of  Spain  to 
appoint  inquisitors  seems  to  have  remained  unused.  The  efforts 
of  Archbishop  Mongriu  and  Raymond  of  Pennaforte  had  spent 
themselves  apparently  without  permanent  results.  King  Jayme 
grew  dissatisfied,  and,  in  1254,  urgently  demanded  a  fresh  effort  of 
Innocent  lY.  This  time  the  pope  concluded,  at  Jayme's  sugges- 
tion, to  place  the  matter  entirely  in  Dominican  hands ;  but  so  little 
had  been  done  in  the  way  of  general  organization  that  he  confided 
the  choice  of  inquisitors  to  the  priors  of  Barcelona,  Lerida,  Per- 
pignan,  and  Elne,  each  one  to  act  within  his  own  diocese,  unless, 
indeed,  there  are  inquisitors  already  in  function  under  papal  com- 
missions— a  clause  which  shows  the  confusion  existing  at  the  time. 
Innocent  further  felt  it  necessary  to  report  this  action  to  the  Arch- 
bishops of  Tarragona  and  Narbonne,  and  to  call  upon  them  to 
assist  the  new  aj)pointees.  This  device  does  not  seem  to  have 
worked  satisfactorily.  At  that  time  the  whole  peninsula  consti- 
tuted but  one  Dominican  province,  and,  in  1262,  Urban  lY.  again 
adopted  definitely  the  plan,  in  general  use  elsewhere,  of  empower- 
ing the  provincial  to  appoint  the  inquisitors — now  limited  to  two. 
A  few  days  before  he  had  sent  to  those  of  Aragon  a  bull  defining 
their  powers  and  procedure,  and  a  copy  of  this  was  enclosed  to 
the  provincial  for  his  guidance.  This  long  remained  the  basis  of 
organization ;  but  after  the  division  of  the  province  into  two,  by 
the  General  Chapter  of  Cologne  in  1301,  the  Aragonese  chafed 
under  their  suJDordination  to  the  Provincial  of  Spain,  whose  terri- 
tories consisted  only  of  Castile,  Leon,  and  Portugal.  The  struggle 
was  protracted,  but  the  Inquisition  of  Aragon  at  last  achieved  in- 
dependence in  1351,  when  Fray  Nicholas  RoselU,  the  Provincial  of 


A  RAG  ON.  169 

Aragon,  obtained  from  Clement  YI.  the  power  of  appointing  and 
removing  the  inquisitors  of  the  kingdom.* 

Meanwhile  the  inquisitors  had  not  been  inactive.  Fray  Pedro 
de  Cadreyta  rendered  himself  especially  conspicuous,  and  as  usual 
Urgel  is  the  prominent  scene  of  activity.  In  conjunction  with  his 
colleague,  Fray  Pedro  de  Tonenes,  and  Arnaldo,  Bishop  of  Barce- 
lona, he  rendered  final  judgment,  January  11,  1257,  against  the 
memory  of  Eamon,  Count  of  Urgel,  as  a  relapsed  heretic  who  had 
abjured  before  the  Bishop  of  Urgel,  and  whose  bones  were  to  be 
exhumed ;  but,  with  unusual  lenity,  the  widow,  Timborosa,  and  the 
son,  Guillen,  were  admitted  to  reconciliation  and  not  deprived  of 
their  estates.  Twelve  years  later,  in  1269,  we  find  Cadreyta,  to- 
gether with  another  colleague,  Fray  Guillen  de  Colonico,  and 
Abril,  Bishop  of  Urgel,  condemning  the  memory  of  Arnaldo,  Viz- 
conde  of  Castelbo,  and  of  his  daughter  Ermessende,  whom  we 
know  as  the  heretic  wife  of  Roger  Bernard  the  Great  of  Foix. 
They  had  both  been  dead  more  than  thirty  years,  and  her  grand- 
son, Roger  Bernard  III.  of  Foix,  who  had  inherited  the  Yizcondado 
of  Castelbo,  was  duly  cited  to  defend  his  ancestors ;  but  if  he  made 
the  attempt,  it  was  vain,  and  their  bones  were  ordered  to  be  ex- 
humed. It  is  not  hkely  that  these  sturdy  champions  of  the  faith 
confined  their  attention  to  the  dead,  though  the  only  execution  we 
happen  to  hear  of  at  this  period  is  that  of  Berenguer  de  Amoros, 
burned  in  1263.  That  the  Uving,  indeed,  were  objects  of  fierce 
persecution  is  rendered  more  than  probable  by  the  martyrdom  of 
Cadreyta,  who  was  stoned  to  death  by  the  exasperated  populace 
of  Urgel,  and  who  thus  furnished  another  saint  for  local  cult.f 

During  the  remainder  of  the  century  we  hear  little  more  of  the 
Inquisition  of  Aragon,  but  the  action  of  tlie  Council  of  Tarragona, 
in  1291,  would  seem  to  show  that  it  was  neither  active  nor  much 
respected.  Otherwise  the  council  would  scarce  have  felt  called 
upon  to  order  the  punishment  of  heretics  who  deny  a  future  exist- 
ence, and,  further,  that  aU  detractors  of  the  Cathohc  faith  ought 

*  Berger,  Registres  d'Innocent  IV.  No.  799,  3904.— Baluz.  et  Mansi  I.  208.— 
RipoU  I.  245,  427,  439;  II.  235.— P:ymeric.  Dirert.  Inquis.  pp.  129-36.— Paramo, 
p.  132. 

t  Llorente,  Ch.  iii.  Art.  i.  No.  14,  17.  —  Monteiro,  Hist,  da  Inquisi(;ao.  P.  i. 
Liv.  ii.  ch.  10.— Pelayo,  Heterodoxos  Espafioles,  I.  492.— Zurita,  Anales  dr  Ara- 
gon, Lib.  u.  c.  76. — Paramo,  p.  178. 


170  THE    SPANISH   PENINSULA. 

to  be  punished  as  they  deserve,  to  teach  them  reverence  and  fear. 
Still  more  significant  is  the  injunction  on  parish  priests  to  receive 
kindly  and  aid  efficiently  the  beloved  Dominican  inquisitors,  who 
are  laboring  for  the  extirpation  of  heresy.* 

With  the  opening  of  the  fourteenth  century  there  would  ap- 
pear to  be  an  increase  of  vigor.  In  1302  Fray  Bernardo  cele- 
brated several  autos  de  fe,  in  which  a  number  of  heretics  were 
abandoned  to  the  secular  arm.  In  1304  Fray  Domingo  Pere- 
grino  had  an  auto  in  which  we  are  told  that  those  who  were 
not  burned  were  banished,  with  the  assent  of  King  Jayme  II. — 
one  of  the  rare  instances  of  this  punishment  in  the  annals  of  the 
Inquisition.  In  1314  Fray  Bernardo  Puigcercos  was  so  fortunate 
as  to  discover  a  number  of  heretics,  of  whom  he  burned  some  and 
exiled  others.  To  Juan  de  Longerio,  in  1317,  belongs  the  doubt- 
ful honor  of  condemning  the  works  of  Arnaldo  de  Yilanova.  The 
names  of  Arnaldo  Burguete,  GuiUen  de  Costa,  and  Leonardo  de 
Puycerda  have  also  reached  us,  as  successful  inquisitors,  but  their 
recorded  labors  were  principally  directed  against  the  Spiritual 
Franciscans,  and  will  be  more  particularly  noted  hereafter.  The 
Aragonese  seem  not  to  have  relished  the  methods  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, for  in  1325  the  Cortes,  with  the  assent  of  King  Jayme  II., 
prohibited  for  the  future  the  use  of  the  inquisitorial  process  and 
of  torture,  as  violations  of  the  Fueros.  Whether  or  not  this  was 
intended  to  apply  to  the  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  to  the  secular 
courts  it  is  impossible  now  to  tell,  but,  if  it  were,  it  had  no  permar 
nent  result,  as  we  learn  from  the  detailed  instructions  of  Eymerich 
fifty  years  later.  About  the  middle  of  the  century,  the  merits  of 
the  Inquisitor  Nicholas  Roselli  earned  him  the  cardinalate.  It  is 
true  that  when  the  energetic  action  of  the  Inquisitor  Jean  Dumou- 
lin,  in  1344,  drove  the  Waldenses  from  Toulouse  to  seek  refuge 
beyond  the  Pyrenees,  Clement  YI.  wrote  earnestly  to  the  kings 
and  prelates  of  Aragon  and  Navarre  to  aid  the  Inquisition  in 
destroying  the  fugitives,  but  there  is  no  trace  of  any  correspond- 
ing result,  t 

To  RoseUi,  however,  belongs  the  credit  of  raising  a  question 

*  Concil.  Tarraconens.  ann.  1291,  c.  8  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VIL  294). 

t  Llorente,  Ch.  in.  Art.  ii.  No.  4,  5,  9, 10,  11, 12,  14. — Eymeric.  Direct.  Inquis. 
p.  265.  —  Ripoll  II.  245.  —  Zurita,  Anales,  Lib.  vi.  c.  61.  — Raynald.  ann.  1344, 
No.  9. 


ARAGON.  171 

which  inflamed  to  a  white  heat  the  traditional  antagonism  of  the 
two  great  Mendicant  Orders.     It  is  worth  brief  attention  as  an 
illustration  of  the  nicety  to  which  doctrinal  theology  had  attained 
under  the  combined  influence  of  scholastic  subtlety  in  raising  ques- 
tions, and  inquisitorial  enforcement  of  implicit  obedience  in  the 
minutest  articles  of  faith.     In  1351  the  Franciscan  Guardian  of 
Barcelona,  in  a  public  sermon,  stated  that  the  blood  shed  by  Christ 
in  the  Passion  lost  its  divinity,  was  sundered  from  the  Logos,  and 
remained  on  earth.     The  question  was  a  novel  one  and  a  trifle  dif- 
ficult of  demonstration,  but  its  raising  gave  RoseUi  a  chance  to  in- 
flict a  blow  on  the  hated  Franciscans,  and  he  referred  it  to  Rome. 
The  answer  met  his  most  ardent  anticipations.     The  Cardinal  of 
Sabina,  by  order  of  Clement  YL,  wrote  that  the  pope  had  heard 
the  proposition  with  horror ;  he  had  convened  an  assembly  of  theo- 
logians in  which  he  himself  argued  against  it,  when  it  was  con- 
demned, and  the  inquisitors  everywhere  were  ordered  to  proceed 
against  all  audacious  enough  to  uphold  it.     RoseUi' s  triumph  was 
complete,  and  the  unfortunate  guardian  was  obhged  to  retract  his 
speculations  in  the  pulpit  where  he  had  promulgated  them.     The 
Franciscans  were  restless  under  this  rebuff,  which  they  construed 
as  directed  against  their  Order.     In  spite  of  the  papal  decision  the 
question  remained  an  open  one  in  the  schools,  where  it  was  eagerly 
debated  on  both  sides.     The  Franciscans  argued,  with  provoking 
reasonableness,  that  the  blood  of  Christ  might  well  be  believed  to 
remain  on  earth,  seeing  that  the  foreskin  severed  in  the  Circum- 
cision was  preserved  in  the  Lateran  Church  and  reverenced  as  a 
relic  under  the  very  eyes  of  pope  and  cardinal,  and  that  portions 
of  the  blood  and  water  which  flowed  in  the  Crucifixion  were  ex- 
hibited to  the  faithful  at  Mantua,  Bruges,  and  elsewhere.     After 
the  lapse  of  a  century,  the  Franciscan,  Jean  Bretonelle,  professor 
of  theology  in  the  University  of  Paris,  in  1448  brought  the  matter 
before  the  faculty,  stating  that  it  was  causing  discussion  at  Ro- 
cheUe  and  other  places.     A  commission  of  theologians  was  ap- 
pointed, which,  after  due  debate,  rendered  a  solemn  decision  that 
it  was  not  repugnant  to  the  faith  to  believe  that  the  blood  shed  at 
the  Passion  remained  on  earth.    Thus  encouraged,  the  Franciscans 
grew  bolder. 

The  Observantine   Franciscan,   Giacomo   da  Monteprandone. 
better  known  as  deUa  Marca,  was  one  of  the  most  prominent 


172  THE    SPANISH    PENINSULA. 

ecclesiastics  of  the  fifteenth  century.  His  matchless  eloquence, 
his  rigid  austerity,  his  superhuman  vigor,  and  his  unquenchaV)]e 
zeal  for  the  extermination  of  heresy  well  earned  the  l:)eatification 
conferred  on  him  after  death;  and  since  1417  he  had  l)een  known 
as  a  hammer  of  heretics.  He  held  a  commission  as  universal  in- 
quisitor which  clothed  him  with  power  throughout  Christendom, 
and  the  heretics  in  every  corner  of  Italy,  in  Bohemia,  Hungary, 
Bosnia,  and  Dalmatia,  had  learned  with  cause  to  tremble  at  his 
name.  It  required  no  httle  nerve  to  assail  such  a  man,  and  yet 
when,  April  18,  1462,  at  Brescia,  he  publicly  preached  the  forbid- 
den doctrine,  the  Dominican  Inquisitor,  Giacomo  da  Brescia,  lost 
no  time  in  calling  him  to  account.  First  a  courteous  note  ex- 
pressed disbehef  in  the  report  of  the  sermon  and  asked  a  disclaimer ; 
but  on  the  Observantine  adhering  to  the  doctrine,  a  formal  sum- 
mons followed,  citing  him  to  appear  for  trial  on  the  next  da^^ 
The  two  Orders  had  thus  fairly  locked  horns.  The  Bishop  of 
Brescia  interfered  and  obtained  a  withdrawal  of  the  summons,  but 
the  question  had  to  be  fought  out  before  the  pope.  The  bitterness 
of  feeling  may  be  judged  by  the  complaint  of  the  inquisitor  that 
his  opponent  had  so  excited  the  people  of  Brescia  against  him  and 
the  Dominicans  that  but  for  prompt  measures  many  of  them  would 
have  been  slain ;  while,  from  Milan  to  Verona,  every  Dominican 
pulpit  resounded  with  denunciations  of  Giacomo  deUa  Marca  as  a 
heretic. 

The  politic  Pius  II.  feared  to  quarrel  with  either  Order,  and 
had  a  tortuous  path  to  tread.  To  the  Dominicans  he  furnished  an 
authenticated  copy  of  the  decision  of  Clement  VI.  To  Giacomo 
della  Marca  he  wrote  that  this  had  been  done  because  he  could 
not  refuse  it,  and  not  to  give  it  authority.  It  had  not  been  issued 
by  Clement,  but  only  in  his  name,  and  the  question  w^as  still  an 
open  one.  Giacomo  might  rest  in  peace  in  the  conviction  that 
the  pope  had  full  confidence  in  his  zeal  and  orthodoxy,  and  that 
his  calumniators  should  be  silenced.  On  May  31  he  issued  com- 
mands that  all  discussions  of  the  question  should  cease,  and  that 
both  sides  should  send  their  most  learned  brethren  to  an  assembly 
which  he  would  hold  in  September  for  exhaustive  debate  and 
final  decision.  This  he  hoped  would  put  an  end  to  the  matter, 
while  skilful  postponement  of  the  conference  would  allow  it  to 
die  out ;  but  he  miscalculated  the  enmity  of  the  rival  Orders.    The 


ARAGON.  173 

quarrel  raged  more  fiercely  than  ever.  The  Franciscans  declared 
that  the  inquisitor  who  started  it  would  be  deprived  of  his  office 
and  mastership  in  theology.  Pius  thereupon  soothed  him  by  as- 
suring him  that  he  had  only  done  his  duty,  and  that  he  had  noth- 
ing to  fear. 

The  conference  had  become  an  inevitable  evil,  and  Pius  found 
himself  obliged  to  allow  it  to  meet  in  December,  1463.  Each  side 
selected  three  champions,  and  for  three  days,  in  the  presence  of 
the  pope  and  sacred  college,  they  argued  the  point  with  such  ar- 
dent vehemence  that,  in  spite  of  the  bitter  winter  weather,  they 
were  bathed  in  sweat.  Then  others  took  part  and  the  question 
was  debated  pro  and  con.  The  Franciscans  put  in  evidence  the 
blood  of  Christ  exhibited  for  the  veneration  of  the  faithful  in 
many  shrines,  and  to  the  foreskin  which  was  in  the  Lateran  and 
also  in  the  royal  chapel  of  France.  They  also  appealed  to  the 
cuttings  of  Christ's  hair  and  beard,  the  parings  of  his  nails,  and  all 
his  excretions — did  these  remain  on  earth  or  were  they  divine  and 
carried  to  heaven  ?  To  these  arguments  the  Dominican  reply  is 
a  curious  exhibition  of  special  pleading  and  sophistry ;  but  as  no 
one  could  allege  a  single  text  of  Scripture  bearing  upon  the  ques- 
tion, neither  side  could  claim  the  victory.  The  good  Bishop  of 
Brescia,  who  had  at  first  played  the  part  of  peacemaker,  consist- 
ently presented  a  written  argument  in  which  he  proved  that  the 
pope  ought  not  to  settle  the  question  because  such  a  determination 
would,  firstly,  be  doubtful ;  secondly,  superfluous ;  and,  thirdly, 
perilous.  This  wise  utterance  was  probably  inspired,  for  Pius  re- 
served his  decision,  and,  August  1, 1464,  only  eight  days  before  his 
death,  issued  a  bull  in  which  he  recited  how  the  faithful  had  been 
scandalized  by  the  quarrel  between  the  two  Orders,  and,  there- 
fore, he  forbade  further  discussion  on  the  subject  until  the  Holy 
See  should  finally  decide  it.  The  Dominicans  were  emphatically 
prohibited  from  denouncing  the  Franciscans  as  heretics  on  ac- 
count of  it,  and  any  infraction  of  his  commands  was  punishable 
by  i/pso  facto  excommunication  supplemented  with  harsh  impris- 
onment. He  tells  us  himself  that  after  the  public  discussion  the 
cardinals  debated  the  matter  for  several  da3^s.  The  majority  in- 
chned  to  the  Dominicans  and  he  agreed  with  them,  but  the  preach- 
ing of  the  Franciscans  was  necessar}''  for  the  crusade  against  the 
Turks  which  he  proposed  to  lead  in  person,  and  it  was  impolitic 


174  THE    SPANISH    PENINSULA. 

to  offend  them,  so  he  postponed  the  decision.  Mutterings  of  dis- 
cussion, without  open  quarrel,  have  since  then  occasionally  oc- 
curred between  the  Orders,  but  the  popes  have  never  seen  fit  to 
issue  a  definite  decision  on  the  subject,  and  the  momentous  ques- 
tion started  by  Roselli  remains  still  unsettled — a  pitfall  for  un- 
wary feet.* 

In  1356  Eoselli  was  created  Cardinal  of  S.  Sisto,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded after  a  short  interval  by  Nicolas  Eymerich,  the  most  note- 
worthy man  of  whom  the  Aragonese  Inquisition  can  boast,  al- 
though after  more  than  thirty  years  of  service  he  ended  his  days 
in  disgrace  and  exile.  Trained  in  varied  learning,  and  incessant 
in  industry,  of  his  numerous  works  but  one  has  had  the  honors  of 
print — his  "Directorium  Inquisitorum,"  in  which,  for  the  first 
time,  he  systematized  the  procedure  of  his  beloved  institution,  giv- 
ing the  principles  and  details  which  should  guide  the  inquisitor 
in  all  his  acts.  The  book  remained  an  authority  to  the  last,  and 
formed  the  basis  of  almost  all  subsequent  compilations.  Eyme- 
rich's  conception  of  the  model  inquisitor  was  lofty.  He  must  be 
fuUy  acquainted  with  all  the  intricacies  of  doctrine,  and  with  all 
the  aberrations  of  heresy — not  only  those  which  are  current  among 
the  common  people,  but  the  recondite  speculations  of  the  schools, 
Averrhoism  and  AristoteUan  errors,  and  the  beliefs  of  Saracen 
and  Tartar.  At  a  time  when  the  Inquisition  was  declining  and 
falling  into  contempt,  he  boldly  insisted  on  its  most  extreme  pre- 
rogatives as  an  imprescriptible  privilege.  If  he  assumed  that  the 
heretic  had  but  one  right — that  of  choosing  between  submission 
and  the  stake — he  was  in  this  but  the  conscientious  exponent  of 
his  age,  and  his  writings  are  instinct  with  the  conviction  that  the 
work  of  the  inquisitor  is  the  salvation  of  souls. 

From  Eymerich's  lament  over  the  difficulty  of  providing  for 
the  expenses  of  an  institution  so  necessary  to  the  Church,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  the  kings  of  Aragon  had  not  felt  it  their  duty  to  sup- 
port the  Holy  Office,  while  the  bishops,  he  tells  us,  were  as  firm 
as  their  brethren  in  other  lands  in  evading  the  responsibility 

*  Eymeric.  Direct.  Inq.  p.  262.— Ripoll  III.  421 ;  VII.  90.  —Wadding,  ann, 
1351,  No.  16, 18,  21 ;  anu.  1462,  No.  1-18;  1463,  No.  1-5  ;  1464,  No.  1-6.— D'Ar- 
gentrg,  I.  i.  372 ;  ii.  250,  254.  —  Gradonici  Pontif.  Brixianorum  Series,  Brixise, 
1755,  pp.  348-51. — Mn.  Sylvii  Comment.  Lib.  xi. ;  Ejusd.  Lib.  de  Contentione  Di- 
vini  Sanguinis. 


ARAGON.  175 

which  by  right  was  incumbent  on  them.  The  confiscations,  he 
adds,  amounted  to  httle  or  nothing,  for  heretics  were  poor  folk— 
"VValdenses,  Fraticelli,  and  the  hke.  In  fact,  so  far  as  we  can 
gather,  the  sum  of  Eymerich's  activity  during  his  long  career  is 
so  small  that  it  shows  how  little  was  left  of  heresy  by  this  time. 
Occasional  FraticeUi  and  Waldenses  and  renegade  Jews  or  Sara- 
cens were  aU.  that  rewarded  the  inquisitor,  with  every  now  and 
then  some  harmless  lunatic  whose  extravagance  unfortunately 
took  a  rehgious  turn,  or  some  over-subtle  speculator  on  the  intri- 
cacies of  dogmatic  theology.  Thus,  early  in  his  career,  about  1360, 
Eymerich  had  the  satisfaction  of  burning  as  a  relapsed  heretic  a 
certain  Nicholas  of  Calabria,  who  persisted  in  asserting  that  his 
teacher,  Martin  Gonsalvo  of  Cuenca,  was  the  Son  of  God,  who 
would  Mve  forever,  would  convert  the  world,  and  at  the  Day  of 
Judgment  would  pray  for  all  the  dead  and  liberate  them  from 
hell.  In  1371  he  had  the  further  gratification  of  silencing,  by  a 
decision  of  Gregory  XI.,  a  Franciscan,  Pedro  Bonageta.  The  ex- 
act relation  between  the  physical  matter  of  the  consecrated  host 
and  the  body  of  Christ  under  certain  circumstances  had  long  been 
a  source  of  disputation  in  the  Church,  and  Fray  Pedro  taught  that 
if  it  fell  into  the  mud  or  other  unclean  place,  or  if  it  were  gnawed 
by  a  mouse,  the  body  of  Christ  flew  to  heaven  and  the  wafer  be- 
came simple  bread;  and  so  also  when  it  was  ground  under  the 
teeth  of  the  recipient,  before  he  swallowed  it.  Gregory  did  not 
venture  to  pronounce  this  heretical,  but  he  forbade  its  pubhc  enun- 
ciation. About  the  same  time  Eymerich  had  a  good  deal  of  trouble 
with  Fray  Eamon  de  Tarraga,  a  Jew  turned  Dominican,  whose 
numerous  philosophical  writings  savored  of  heresy.  After  he  had 
been  kept  in  prison  for  a  couple  of  years,  Gregory  ordered  him  to 
have  a  speedy  trial,  and  threatened  Eymerich  with  punishment 
for  contumacy  if  his  commands  were  disobeyed.  Ramon  must 
have  had  powerful  friends  in  the  Order  whom  Eymerich  feared 
to  provoke,  for  six  months  later  Gregory  wrote  again,  saying  that 
if  Ramon  could  not  be  punished  according  to  the  law  in  Aragon, 
he  must  be  sent  to  the  papal  court  under  good  guard  with  aU  the 
papers  of  the  process  duly  sealed.  In  fact,  the  Inquisition  was  not 
estabhshed  for  the  trial  of  Dominicans.  At  the  same  time  another 
Jew,  Astruchio  de  Piera,  held  by  Eymerich  on  an  accusation  of 
sorcery  and  the  invocation  of  demons,  was  claimed  as  justiciable 


176  THE    SPANISH    PENINSULA. 

by  the  civil  power,  and  was  sequestrated  until  Gregory  ordered 
his  delivery  to  the  inquisitor,  who  forced  him  to  abjure  and  im- 
prisoned him  for  life.  Somewhat  earher  was  a  certain  Bartolo 
Janevisio,  of  Majorca,  w^ho  indulged  in  some  apocalyptic  writing 
about  Antichrist,  and  was  forced,  in  1361,  by  Eymerich  to  recant, 
while  his  book  was  publicly  burned.  More  practical,  from  a  po- 
litical point  of  view,  w^as  Eymerich's  doctrine  that  aU  who  lent 
assistance  to  the  Saracens  w^ere  punishable  by  the  Inquisition  as 
fautors  of  heresy,  but  this  seems  to  have  remained  a  theoretical 
assertion  which  brought  no  business  to  the  Holy  Office.  We  shall 
see  hereafter  how  he  fared  in  seeking  the  condemnation  of  Ray- 
mond LuUi's  writings,  and  need  only  say  here  that  the  result  w^as 
his  suspension  from  office,  to  be  succeeded  by  his  capital  enemy 
Bernardo  Ermengaudi,  in  1386,  and  that  after  the  succession  to  the 
throne,  in  1387,  of  Juan  I.,  who  was  bitterly  hostile  to  him,  he  w^as 
twice  proscribed  and  exiled,  and  was  denounced  by  the  king  as  an 
obstinate  fool,  an  enemy  of  the  faith  inspired  by  Satan,  anointed 
with  the  poison  of  infidelity,  together  with  other  unflattering  quali- 
fications. He  did  not  succeed  better  when  in  his  rash  zeal  he  as- 
sailed the  holy  San  Yicente  Ferrer  for  saying  in  a  sermon  that 
Judas  Iscariot  had  a  true  and  salutary  repentance ;  that,  being  un- 
able to  reach  Christ  and  obtain  forgiveness  owing  to  the  crowd, 
he  hanged  himself  and  was  pardoned  in  heaven.  When  the  case 
was  drawing  to  a  conclusion,  Pedro  de  Luna,  then  Cardinal  of 
Aragon,  took  Vicente  under  his  protection  and  made  him  his  con- 
fessor, and,  after  his  election  in  1394  as  Avignonese  pope,  under  the 
name  of  Benedict  XIII.,  he  forced  Eymerich  to  surrender  the  pa- 
pers, which  he  unceremoniously  burned.  The  next  inquisitor,  Ber- 
nardo Puig,  is  said  to  have  been  earnest  and  successful,  punishing 
many  heretics  and  confuting  many  heresies.  In  Valencia,  about 
1390,  there  was  a  case  in  which  Pedro  de  Ceplanes,  priest  of  CeUa, 
read  in  his  church  a  formal  declaration  that  there  ^vere  three  nat- 
ures in  Christ — divine,  spiritual,  and  human.  A  merchant  of  the 
town  loudly  contradicted  it,  and  a  tumult  arose.  The  inquisitor 
of  Valencia  promptly  arrested  the  too  ingenious  theologian,  who 
only  escaped  the  stake  by  public  recantation  and  condemnation  to 
perpetual  imprisonment ;  but  he  broke  jail  and  fled  to  the  Balearic 
Isles,  interjecting  an  appeal  to  the  Holy  See.* 

»  Eymeric.  Direct.  Inquis.  pp.  44,  266,  314-6,  351,  357-8,  652-3.— Mag.  Bull 


ARAGON.  iffj 

The  creation,  in  1262,  of  the  kingdom  of  Majorca,  comprising 
the  Balearic  Isles,  Rosellon,  and  Cerdaiia,  by  Jay  me  I.  of  Aragon, 
for  the  benefit  of  his  younger  son  Jayme,  seemed  to  render  a  sepa- 
rate inquisition  requisite  for  the  new  realm.  At  what  time  it 
was  established  is  uncertain,  the  earliest  inquisitor  of  Majorca  on 
record  being  Fr.  Ramon  Durf ort,  whose  name  occurs  as  a  witness 
on  a  charter  of  1332,  and  he  continued  to  occupy  the  position  un- 
til 1343,  when  he  was  elected  Provincial  of  Toulouse.  From  that 
time,  at  least,  there  is  a  succession  of  inquisitors,  and  the  forcible 
reunion  in  1348,  by  Pedro  IV.,  of  the  outlying  provinces  to  the 
crown  of  Aragon  did  not  effect  a  consolidation  of  the  tribunals. 
As  the  Inquisition  declined  in  dignity  and  importance,  indeed,  it 
seems  to  have  sought  a  remedy  in  multiplying  and  localizing  its 
offices.  In  1413  Benedict  XIII.  (who  was  still  recognized  as 
pope  in  Aragon)  made  a  further  division  by  separating  the  coun- 
ties of  Rosellon  and  Cerdana  from  the  Balearic  Isles,  Fray  Ber- 
nardo Pages  retaining  the  former,  and  GuiUen  Sagarra  obtaining 
the  latter.  Both  of  these  were  energetic  men  who  celebrated  a 
number  of  autos  defe,  in  which  numerous  heretics  were  reconciled 
or  burned.  Sagarra  was  succeeded  by  Bernardo  Moyl,  and  the  lat- 
ter by  Antonio  Murta,  who  was  confirmed  in  1420,  when  Martin  V. 
approved  of  the  changes  made.  At  the  same  time  Martin,  at  the 
request  of  the  king  and  of  the  consuls  of  Valencia,  erected  that 
province  also  into  a  separate  Inquisition.  The  Provincial  of  Ara- 
gon appointed  Fray  Andrea  Ros  to  fiU  the  position ;  he  was  con- 
finned  in  1433  by  Eugenius  IV.,  but  was  removed  without  cause 
assigned  the  next  year  by  the  same  pope,  although  we  are  told 
that  he  inflexibly  persecuted  the  "  Bohemians  "  or  "  Wickliffites  " 
with  fire  and  sword.  His  successors,  Domingo  Corts  and  Antonio 
de  Cremona,  earned  equal  laurels  in  suppressing  Waldenses.* 

A  case  occurring  in  1423  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  In- 
quisition had  lost  much  of  the  terror  which  had  rendered  it  for- 


Rom.  I.  263.— Ripoll  H.  268,  269,  270.— Martene  Thesaur.  II.  1181-2,  1182  W», 
1189.— Raynald.  ann.  1398,  No.  23.— Wadding,  ann.  1371,  No.  14-24.— Paramo, 
p.  111.— Pelayo,  Heterodoxos  Espaiioles,  I.  499-500,  528. 

*  Dameto,  Mut,  y  Alemany,  Historia  Geueral  de  Mallorca  (Ed.  1840, 1.  101-3, 
II.  652).— Libell.  de  Magist.  Ord.  Prsedic.  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VI.  432).— Paramo, 
pp.  179,  186-7.— Ripoll  IL  579,  594 ;  III.  20,  28.— Mouteiro,  P.  i,  Liv.  ii.  c.  30.— 
Llorente,  Ch.  lu.  Art.  iii.  No.  4,  8. 

XL— 12 


J78  THE   SPANISH    PENINSULA. 

midable.  Fray  Pedro  Salazo,  Inquisitor  of  Rosellon  and  Cerdafla, 
threw  in  prison  on  charges  of  heresy  a  hermit  named  Pedro  Fre- 
serii,  who  enjoyed  great  reputation  for  sanctity  among  the  people. 
The  accused  declared  that  the  witnesses  were  personal  enemies, 
and  that  he  was  ready  to  purge  himself  before  a  proper  judge, 
and  his  friends  lodged  an  appeal  with  Martin  Y.  The  pope  re- 
ferred the  matter,  with  power  to  decide  without  appeal,  to  Ber- 
nardo, Abbot  of  the  Benedictine  Monastery  of  Aries,  in  the  diocese 
of  Elne.  Bernardo  deputed  the  case  to  a  canon  of  the  church  of 
Elne,  who  acquitted  the  accused  without  awaiting  the  result  of 
another  appeal  to  the  pope  interjected  by  the  inquisitor;  and 
Martin  finally  sent  the  matter  to  the  Ordinary  of  Narbonne,  with 
power  to  summon  all  parties  before  him  and  decide  the  case  defi- 
nitely. The  whole  transaction  shows  a  singular  want  of  respect 
for  the  functions  of  the  Inquisition.* 

Even  more  significant  is  a  complaint  made  in  1456  to  Calixtus 
III.  by  Fray  Mateo  de  Rapica,  a  later  inquisitor  of  Rosellon  and 
Cerdana.  Certain  neophytes,  or  converted  Jews,  persisted  in 
Judaic  practices,  such  as  eating  meat  in  Lent  and  forcing  their 
Christian  servants  to  do  likewise.  When  Fray  Mateo  and  Juan, 
Bishop  of  Elne,  prosecuted  them,  they  were  so  far  from  submit- 
ting that  they  published  a  defamatory  Ubel  upon  the  inquisitor, 
and,  with  the  aid  of  certain  laymen,  afflicted  him  with  injuries 
and  expenses.  Finding  himself  powerless,  he  appealed  to  the 
pope,  who  ordered  the  Archbishop  and  Ofiicial  of  ISTarbonne  to 
intervene  and  decide  the  matter.  The  same  spirit,  in  even  a  more 
aggravated  form,  was  exhibited  in  a  case  already  referred  to, 
when,  in  1458,  Fray  Miguel,  the  Inquisitor  of  Aragon,  was  mal- 
treated and  thrown  in  prison  for  nine  months  by  some  nobles  and 
high  officials  of  the  kingdom,  whom  he  had  offended  in  obeying 
the  instructions  sent  to  him  by  Nicholas  Y.f 

Yet,  as  against  the  poor  and  friendless,  the  Inquisition  retained 
its  power.  Wickliffitism — as  it  had  become  the  fashion  to  designate 
"Waldensianism — had  continued  to  spread,  and  about  1440  numbers 
of  its  sectaries  were  discovered,  of  whom  some  were  reconciled, 
and  more  were  burned  as  obstinate  heretics  by  Miguel  Ferriz, 


•  Ripoll  II.  613. 

t  Ripoll  III.  347.— Arch,  de  I'Inq.  de  Carcass.  (Doat,  XXXV.  192). 


ARAGON.  179 

Inquisitor  of  Aragon,  and  Martin  Trilles  of  Valencia.  Possibly 
among  these  was  an  unfortunate  woman,  Leonor,  wife  of  Doctor 
Jay  me  de  Liminanna,  of  whom,  about  this  time,  we  hear  that  she- 
refused  to  perform  the  penance  assigned  to  her  by  the  Inquisition 
of  Cartagena,  and  that  she  was  consequently  abandoned  to  the 
secular  arm.  The  post  of  inquisitor  continued  to  be  sought  for. 
To  multiply  it,  Catalonia  was  separated  from  Aragon  by  Nicholas 
y.  shortly  after  his  accession  in  144Y.  In  1459  another  division 
took  place,  the  diocese  of  Barcelona  being  erected  into  an  inde- 
pendent tribunal  by  Martiale  AuribeUi,  Dominican  General  Mas- 
ter, for  the  benefit  of  Fray  Juan  Conde,  counsellor  and  confessor 
of  the  infant  Carlos,  Prince  of  Viane.  The  new  incumbent,  how- 
ever, had  not  a  peaceful  time.  It  was  probably  the  Inquisitor  of 
Catalonia,  objecting  to  the  fractioning  of  his  district,  who  obtained 
from  Pius  II.,  in  1461,  a  brief  annulling  the  division,  on  the 
ground  that  one  inquisitor  had  always  sufficed.  Pray  Juan  re- 
sisted and  incurred  excommunication,  but  the  influence  of  his  royal 
patron  was  sufficient  to  obtain  from  Pius,  October  13,  1461,  an- 
other bull  restoring  him  to  his  position  and  absolving  him  from 
the  excommunication.  In  1479  a  squabble  occurring  at  Valencia 
shows  that  the  office  possessed  attractions  worth  contending  for. 
The  Provincial  of  Aragon  had  removed  Fray  Jayme  Borell  and 
appointed  Juan  Marquez  in  his  stead.  BoreU  carried  the  tale  of 
his  woes  to  Sixtus  IV.,  who  commanded  the  General  Master  to 
replace  him  and  retain  him  in  peaceful  possession.* 

Ferdinand  the  Cathohc  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  Aragon  in 
1479,  as  he  had  already  done,  in  1474,  to  that  of  Castile  by  right 
of  his  wife  Isabella.  Even  before  the  organizing  of  the  new  In- 
quisition in  Aragon,  in  1483,  it  is  probable  that  the  influence  of 
Ferdinand  had  done  much  to  restore  the  power  of  the  institution. 
In  1482,  on  the  eve  of  the  change,  we  find  the  Inquisition  of  Ara- 
gon acting  with  renewed  vigor  and  boldness,  under  the  Domini- 
can, Juan  de  Epila.  A  number  of  cases  are  recorded  of  this  pe- 
riod, including  the  prosecution  of  the  father  and  mother  of  Felipe 
de  Clemente,  Prothonotary  of  the  kingdom.  As  a  preparatory 
step  to  placing  the  dominions  of  the  crown  of  Aragon  under  Tor- 

*  Llorente,  Ch.  ni.  Art.  iii.  No.  11. — Albertini  Repertor.  Inquis.  s.  v.  Deficiena. 
— Ripoll  m.  397,  415,  572. 


ISO  THE    SPANISH    PENINSULA. 

quemada  as  Inquisitor-general,  it  was  requisite  to  get  rid  of  Cris- 
tobal Gualvez,  who  had  been  Inquisitor  of  Valencia  since  1452, 
and  who  had  disgraced  his  office  by  his  crimes.  Sixtus  IT.  had  a 
special  enmity  to  him,  and,  in  ordering  his  deposition,  stigmatized 
him  as  an  impudent  and  impious  man,  whose  unexampled  excesses 
were  worthy  of  severe  chastisement;  and  when  Sixtus,  in  1483, 
extended  Torquemada's  authority  over  the  whole  of  Spain,  with 
power  to  nominate  deputies,  he  excepted  "  that  son  of  iniquity, 
Cristobal  Gualvez,"  who  had  been  interdicted  from  the  office  in 
consequence  of  his  demerits,  and  whom  he  even  deprived  of  the 
function  of  preaching.* 


The  great  kingdom  of  Castile  and  Leon,  embracing  the  major 
portion  of  the  Spanish  peninsula,  never  enjoyed  the  blessing  of  the 
mediaeval  Inquisition.  It  was  more  independent  of  Eome  than 
any  other  monarchy  of  the  period.  Lordly  prelates,  turbulent 
nobles,  and  cities  jealous  of  their  liberties  aUowed  scant  opportu- 
nity for  the  centraUzation  of  power  in  the  crown.  The  people 
were  rude  and  uncultured,  and  not  much  given  to  vain  theological 
speculation.  Their  superfluous  energy,  moreover,  found  ample 
occupation  in  the  task  of  winning  back  the  land  from  the  Saracen. 
The  large  population  of  Jews  and  of  conquered  Moors  gave  them 
pecuMar  problems  to  deal  with  which  would  have  been  comphcated 
rather  than  solved  by  the  methods  of  the  Inquisition,  until  the 
union  of  Aragon  and  Castile  under  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  fol- 
lowed by  the  conquest  of  Granada,  enabled  those  monarchs  to  un- 
dertake seriously  the  business,  attractive  both  to  statecraft  and  to 
fanaticism,  of  compelling  uniformity  of  faith. 

It  is  true  that  the  Dominican  legend  relates  how  Dominic  re- 
turned from  Eome  to  Spain  as  Inquisitor -general,  on  the  errand 
of  estabhshing  there  the  Inquisition  for  the  purpose  of  punishing 
the  renegade  converted  Jews  and  Moors;  how  he  was  warmly 
seconded  by  San  Fernando  III. ;  how  he  organized  the  Inquisition 
throughout  the  land,  celebrating  himself  the  first  auto  de  fe  at 


*  Llorente,  Ch.  vii.  Art.  ii.  No.  2. — Herculano,  Da  Origem,  etc.,  da  Inquisi9ao 
em  Portugal,  I.  44.— Ripoll  IH.  422.— Paramo,  p.  187. 


CASTILE.  181 

Burgos,  where  three  hundred  apostates  were  burned,  and  the  sec- 
ond auto  in  the  presence  of  the  saintly  king,  who  himself  carried 
on  his  shoulders  fagots  for  the  burning  of  his  subjects,  and  the 
pertinacious  wretches  defiantly  rejoiced  in  the  flames  Avhich  were 
consuming  them ;  how,  after  this,  he  established  the  Inquisition 
in  Aragon,  whence  he  journeyed  to  Paris  and  organized  it  through- 
out France ;  how,  in  1220,  he  sent  Conrad  of  Marburg  as  inquisitor 
to  Germany,  and  in  1221  finished  his  labors  by  founding  it  in  all 
the  parts  of  Italy.  All  this  can  rank  in  historical  value  with  the 
veracious  statement  of  an  old  chronicler — a  compatriot  of  the  Pied 
Piper  of  Hamelin — that  St.  Boniface  was  an  inquisitor,  and  that, 
with  the  support  of  Pepin  le  Bref,  he  burned  many  heretics. 
Detailed  lists,  moreover,  are  given  of  the  successive  inquisitors- 
general  of  the  Peninsula — Frailes  Suero  Gomes,  B.  Gil,  Pedro  de 
Huesca,  Arnaldo  Segarra,  Garcia  de  Yalcos,  etc.,  but  these  are 
simply  the  Dominican  provincials  of  Spain,  who  were  empowered 
by  the  popes  to  appoint  inquisitors,  and  whose  exercise  of  that 
power  did  not  extend  beyond  Aragon.  Even  Paramo,  although 
he  tries  to  prove  that  there  were  inquisitors  nominally  in  Castile, 
is  forced  to  admit  that  practically  there  was  no  Inquisition  there.* 
Yet,  even  in  the  distant  city  of  Leon,  Catharism  had  obtained 
a  foothold.  Bishop  Rodrigo,  who  died  in  1232,  expelled  a  number 
of  Cathari,  on  his  attention  being  called  to  them  by  their  circulat- 
ing a  story  to  excite  hatred  of  the  priesthood,  relating  how  a  poor 
woman  placed  a  candle  on  the  altar  in  honor  of  the  Virgin,  and 
on  her  leaving  it  a  priest  took  it  for  his  own  use.  The  following 
night  the  Virgin  appeared  to  her  votary  and  cast  burning  wax 
into  her  eyes,  saying,  "  Take  the  wages  of  your  service.  As  soon 
as  you  went  away  a  priest  carried  off  the  candle ;  as  you  would 
have  been  rewarded  had  the  candle  been  consumed  on  my  altar, 
so  you  must  bear  the  punishment,  since  your  carelessness  gave  me 
the  light  only  for  a  moment."  This  diabolical  story,  says  Lucas 
of  Tuy,  an  eye-witness,  so  affected  the  minds  of  the  simple  that 
the  devotion  of  offering  candles  ceased,  and  it  required  two  genu- 
ine miracles  to  restore  the  faith  of  the  people.     During  the  inter- 


•  Monteiro,  P.  i.  Liv.  i.  c.  38,  44,  46,  48-51 ;  Liv.  ii.  c.  5-12.— Clirou.  Eccles. 
Hamelens.  (Scriptt.  Rer.  Bruusv.  II.  508).  — Herculauo,  I.  39. — Baluz.  et  Munsi,  I. 
208.— Paramo  de  Orig.  Offic.  S.  Inquis.  p.  131. 


182  THE    SPANISH    PENINSULA. 

val  between  the  death  of  Bisliop  Rodrigo,  in  March,  12B2,  and  the 
election  of  his  successor,  Arnaldo,  in  August,  1234,  the  honjtics 
had  ample  opportunity  to  work  their  wicked  will.  A  Catharan 
named  Arnaldo  had  been  burned,  about  1218,  in  a  place  in  the  sub- 
urbs used  for  depositing  filth.  There  was  a  spring  there  which 
the  heretics  colored  red,  and  proclaimed  that  it  had  miraculously 
been  turned  to  blood.  Many  of  them,  simulating  bhndness, 
lameness,  and  demoniacal  possession,  were  carried  there  and  pre- 
tended to  be  cured,  after  which  they  dug  up  the  heretic's  bones 
and  declared  them  to  be  those  of  a  holy  martyr.  The  people 
were  fired  with  enthusiasm,  erected  a  chapel,  and  worshipped  the 
relics  with  the  utmost  ardor.  In  vain  the  clergy  and  the  friars 
endeavored  to  stem  the  tide ;  the  people  denounced  them  as  here- 
tics, and  despised  the  excommunication  with  which  the  neighbor- 
ing bishops  visited  the  adoration  of  the  new  saint ;  whUe  the  real 
heretics  made  many  converts  by  secretly  relating  how  the  affair 
had  been  managed,  and  pointing  it  out  as  a  sample  of  the  manu- 
facture of  saints  and  miracles.  God  visited  the  sacrilege  with  a 
drouth  of  ten  months,  which  was  not  broken  until  Lucas,  at  the 
risk  of  his  life,  destroyed  the  heretic  chapel ;  and  when  the  rains 
came  there  was  a  revulsion  of  feeling  which  enabled  him  to  expel 
the  heretics.  All  this  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  heretics 
were  nmnerous  and  organized ;  it  certainly  shows  that  there  was 
no  machinery  for  their  suppression;  but  after  the  elevation  of 
Lucas  to  the  see  of  Tuy,  in  1239,  we  hear  no  more  of  heretics  or 
of  persecutions.  The  whole  affair,  apparently,  was  a  sporadic 
manifestation,  probably  of  some  band  of  fugitives  from  Langue- 
doc,  who  disappeared  and  left  no  following.* 

If  what  Lucas  tells  us  be  true,  that  ecclesiastics  frequently 
joined  in  and  enjoyed  the  ridicule  with  which  heretics  derided 
the  sacraments  and  the  clergy,  the  Spanish  Church  was  not  likely 
to  give  much  aid  to  the  introduction  of  the  Inquisition.  How 
little  its  methods  were  understood  appears  in  the  fact  that  when, 
in  1236,  San  Fernando  III.  found  some  heretics  at  Palencia,  he 
proceeded  to  brand  them  in  the  face,  which  brought  them  to 
reason  and  led  them  to  seek  absolution.     No  one  seemed  to  know 


*  Lucae  Tudens.  de  altera  Vita,  Lib.  in.  c.  7,  9.     Cf.  c.  18,  20.  — Florez, 
Espafia  Sagrada,  XXII.  130-23, 136-30. 


CASTILE.  133 

what  to  do  with  them,  so  Gregory  IX.  was  applied  to,  and  he 
authorized  the  Bishop  of  Palencia  to  reconcile  them.  There  is 
probably  no  truth  in  the  statement  of  some  historians  that  the 
king,  on  several  occasions,  was  obhged  to  levy  from  his  subjects 
a  tribute  of  wood  with  which  to  burn  the  unrepentant,  and  the 
story  only  serves  to  show  how  utterly  vague  have  been  the  cur- 
rent conceptions  of  the  period.* 

We  reach  firmer  ground  with  the  codes  known  as  El  Fuero 
Eeal  and  Las  Siete  Partidas,  the  first  issued  by  Alonso  the  Wise, 
in  1255,  and  the  second  about  ten  years  later.  By  this  time  the 
Inquisition  was  at  its  height.  It  was  thoroughly  organized,  and 
wherever  it  existed  the  business  of  suppressing  heresy  was  exclu- 
sively in  its  hands.  Yet  not  only  does  Alonso  take  no  count  of 
it,  but  in  his  regulation  by  secular  law  of  the  relations  between 
the  heretic  and  the  Church  he  shows  how  completely,  up  to  this 
period,  Spain,  had  remained  outside  of  the  great  movements  of 
the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries.  Heresy,  it  is  true,  is  one 
of  the  matters  pertaining  to  the  ecclesiastical  tribunals,  and  any 
one  can  accuse  a  heretic  before  his  bishop  or  vicar.  If  the  ac- 
cused is  found  not  to  believe  as  the  Church  teaches,  effort  is  to 
be  made  to  convert  him,  and  if  he  returns  to  the  faith  lie  is  to  be 
pardoned.  If  he  proves  obstinate,  he  is  to  be  handed  over  to  the 
secular  judge.  Then,  however,  his  fate  is  decided  without  refer- 
ence to  the  laws  which  the  Church  had  endeavored  to  introduce 
throughout  Christendom.  If  the  culprit  had  received  the  consola- 
Tnentum,  or  is  a  behever  observing  the  rites,  or  one  of  those  who 
deny  the  future  Ufe,  he  is  to  be  burned ;  but  if  a  believer  not  ob- 
serving the  rites,  he  is  to  be  banished  or  imprisoned  until  he  returns 
to  the  faith.  Any  one  learning  heresy,  but  not  yet  a  believer,  is 
fined  ten  pounds  of  gold  to  the  fisc,  or,  if  unable  to  pay,  to  receive 
fifty  lashes  in  public.  In  the  case  of  those  who  die  in  heresy  or 
are  executed,  their  estates  pass  to  Cathohc  descendants,  or,  in 
default  of  these,  to  the  next  of  kin ;  if  without  such  kindred,  the 
property  of  laymen  goes  to  the  fisc,  of  ecclesiastics,  to  the  Church, 
if  claimed  within  a  year,  after  which  it  inures  to  the  fisc.  Chil- 
dren disinherited  for  heresy  recover  their  portions,  but  not  the 


*  Lucsc  Tudens.  Lib.  iii.  c.  12.— Raynald.  ann.  1236,  No.  60.— Rodrigo,  Hist. 
Verdadera  de  la  Inquisicion,  II.  10. 


184  THE   SPANISH   PENINSULA. 

mesne  profits,  on  recantation.  TSTo  one,  after  condemnation  for 
heresy,  can  hold  office,  inherit  property,  make  a  will,  execute  a 
sale,  or  give  testimony.  The  house  where  a  wandering  heretic 
missionary  is  sheltered  is  forfeited  to  the  Church,  if  inhabited  by 
the  owner ;  if  rented,  the  offending  tenant  is  fined  ten  pounds  of 
gold  or  publicly  scourged.  A  rico  home  or  noble  sheltering  here- 
tics in  his  lands  or  castles,  and  persisting  after  a  year's  excommu- 
nication, forfeits  the  land  or  castle  to  the  king ;  and  if  a  non-noble 
his  body  and  property  are  at  the  king's  pleasure.  The  Christian 
who  turns  Jew  or  Moslem  is  legally  a  heretic,  and  is  to  be  burned, 
as  well  as  one  who  brings  up  a  child  in  the  forbidden  faith.  Prose- 
cutions of  the  dead,  however,  are  humanely  limited  to  five  years 
after  decease.* 

All  this  shows  that  Alonso  and  his  counsellors  recognized  the 
duty  of  the  State  to  preserve  the  purity  of  the  faith,  but  that  they 
considered  it  wholly  an  affair  of  the  State,  in  which  the  Church 
had  no  voice  beyond  ascertaining  the  guilt  of  the  accused.  All 
the  voluminous  and  minute  legislation  of  Gregory  IX.,  Innocent 
IV.,  and  Alexander  TV.  was  wholly  disregarded — the  canon  law 
had  no  currency  in  Castile,  which  regulated  such  matters  to  suit 
its  own  needs.  That  in  this  respect  the  popular  needs  were  met 
is  shown  by  the  Ordenamiento  de  Alcala,  issued  in  1348,  which 
is  silent  on  the  subject  of  heresy.  Apparently  no  change  was 
deemed  necessary  in  the  provisions  of  the  Partidas,  which  were 
then  for  the  first  time  confirmed  by  the  popular  assembly.  Under 
such  legislation  it  follows  as  a  matter  of  course  that  the  Domini- 
can provincial  had  no  inquisitors  to  appoint,  except  in  Aragon, 
under  the  bull  of  Urban  lY.  in  1262. 

Castile  continued  unvexed  by  the  Inquisition,  and  persecution 
for  heresy  was  almost  unknown.  In  1316  Bernard  Gui,  of  Tou- 
louse, discovered  in  his  district  some  of  the  dreaded  sectaries  known 
as  Dolcinists  or  Pseudo-Apostoli,  who  fled  to  Spain  to  escape  his 
energetic  pursuit.  May  1,  1316,  he  wrote  to  all  the  prelates  and 
friars  of  Spain  describing  their  characteristics  and  urging  their 
apprehension  and  punishment.  Had  there  been  an  Inquisition 
there  he  would  have  addressed  himself  to  it.     From  remote  Com- 


•  Las  Siete  Partidas,  P.  i.  Tit.  vi.  1.  58;  P.  vii.  Tit.  xxiv.  1.  7;  Tit.  xxv.  11. 
2-7.— El  Fuero  real,  Lib.  rv.  Tit.  i.  11.  1,  2. 


CASTILE.  185 

postella  he  received  an  answer,  written  by  Archbishop  Rodrigo, 
March  6,  131Y,  announcing  that  five  persons  answering  to  the 
description  had  been  captured  there  and  were  held  in  chains,  and 
asking  for  instructions  as  to  the  mode  of  trying  them  and  the 
punishment  to  be  inflicted  in  case  they  are  found  guilty,  "  for  all 
this  is  heretofore  unaccustomed  in  our  parts."  Evidently  there 
was  no  Inquisition  in  Castile  and  Leon  to  which  to  apply,  and 
even  the  provisions  of  the  Partidas  were  unknown,  though  of  all 
places  in  the  kingdom  Compostella  must  have  been  the  one  most 
famiUar  with  the  outer  world  and  with  heretics,  from  the  stream 
of  penitents  continually  sent  thither  as  pilgrims.* 

In  1401  Boniface  IX.  made  a  demonstration  by  appointing  the 
provincial,  Vicente  de  Lisboa,  inquisitor  over  all  Spain,  directing 
that  his  expenses  should  be  paid  by  the  bishops,  and  that  no  supe- 
rior of  his  Order  could  remove  him.  The  only  heresy  specifically 
alluded  to  in  the  bull  is  the  idolatrous  worship  of  plants,  trees, 
stones,  and  altars  —  apparently  superstitious  relics  of  paganism 
which  indicate  the  condition  of  religion  and  culture  in  the  Penin- 
sula. Boniface's  action  could  hardly  have  been  taken  with  any 
expectation  of  result,  as  Spain  rendered  obedience  to  Benedict 
XIII.,  the  Antipope  of  Avignon,  and  it  was  probably  only  a  move 
in  the  poMtical  game  of  the  Great  Schism.  Whatever  the  motive, 
however,  the  effort  was  fruitless,  for  Fray  Vicente  was  already 
dead  in  the  odor  of  sanctity  at  the  date  of  the  bull.  On  learning 
this,  Boniface  returned  to  the  charge,  February  1,  1402,  b}^  em- 
powering forever  thereafter  the  Dominican  Provincial  of  Spain 
to  appoint  and  remove  inquisitors,  or  to  act  as  such  himself,  with 
all  the  privileges  and  powers  accorded  to  the  office  by  the  canons. 
Inoperative  as  this  remained,  it  at  least  had  the  advantage  of  sup- 
plying to  the  Spanish  historians  an  unbroken  line  of  inquisitors- 
general  to  be  catalogued.  About  the  same  time  King  TIenry  III. 
increased  the  penalties  of  heresy  by  decreeing  confiscation  to  the 
royal  treasury  of  one-half  of  the  possessions  of  heretics  condemned 
by  the  ecclesiastical  judges.f 

*  Coll.  Doat,  XXX.  132  sqq.— Arclibishop  Rodrigo's  letter  is  dated  1315. 
This  I  presume  to  be  an  error  of  a  copyist,  probably  misled  by  the  use  ol  the 
Spanish  era  in  which  1355  is  equivalent  to  1317. 

t  RipoU  II.  421,433. — Monteiro,  P.  i.  Liv.  ii.  c.  35,  36. — Ordenanzas  Reales, 
Lib.  VIII.  Tit.  ir.  1.  4. 


186  THE  SPANISH  PENINSULA. 

This,  perhaps,  technically  justifies  Alonso  Tostado,  Bishop  of 
Avila,  who  soon  afterwards  alludes  to  inquisitors  in  Spain  inves- 
tigating those  defamed  for  heresy,  and  it  explains  the  remarks 
of  Sixtus  IV.  when,  in  January,  14S2,  he  confirmed  the  two  inquis- 
itors appointed  at  Seville  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  at  the  com- 
mencement of  their  reforms,  and  forbade  their  naming  more,  for 
the  reason  that  the  appointees  of  the  Dominican  provincial  were 
sufficient.  In  spite  of  all  this,  the  Spanish  Inquisition  was  sim- 
ply potential,  not  existent.  When,  in  1453,  Alonso  de  Almarzo, 
Abbot  of  the  great  Benedictine  foundation  of  Antealtares  of  Com- 
postella,  with  his  accomplices,  was  tried  for  selling  throughout 
Spain  and  Portugal  indulgences  warranted  to  release  the  souls  of 
the  damned  from  hell,  for  counterfeiting  the  papal  Agnus  Dei, 
for  forging  and  altering  papal  letters,  and  for  persuading  Jewish 
converts  to  apostatize,  had  there  been  an  Inquisition  it  would 
promptly  have  taken  cognizance  of  the  culprits ;  but  in  place  of 
this  the  case  was  referred  to  Nicolas  V.,  who  instructed  the  Bishop 
of  Tarazona  to  proceed  against  them.  A  few  years  later  Alonso 
de  Espina,  about  1460,  sorrowfully  admits  the  absence  of  all  per- 
secution of  heresy.  Bishops  and  inquisitors  and  preachers  ought 
aU  to  resist  the  heretics,  but  there  is  no  one  to  do  it.  "  Ko  one 
investigates  the  errors  of  heretics.  The  ravening  wolves,  O  Lord, 
have  gained  admittance  to  thy  flock,  for  the  shepherds  are  few. 
There  are  many  hirehngs,  and  because  they  are  hirelings  they 
care  only  for  shearing,  not  for  feeding  the  sheep !"  and  he  di'aws 
a  deplorable  picture  of  the  Spanish  Church,  distracted  with  here- 
tics, Jews,  and  Saracens.  Soon  after  this,  in  1464,  the  Cortes 
assembled  at  Medina  turned  its  attention  to  the  subject  and  com- 
plained of  the  great  number  of  "  malos  cristianos  e  sospechosos  en 
la  fe"  but  the  national  aversion  to  the  papal  Inquisition  stiU 
manifested  itself,  and  its  introduction  was  not  suggested.  The 
archbishops  and  bishops  were  requested  to  set  on  foot  a  rigid 
investigation  after  heretics,  and  King  Henry  IV.  was  asked  to 
lend  them  aid,  so  that  every  suspected  place  might  be  thoroughly 
searched,  and  offenders  brought  to  light,  imprisoned,  and  punished. 
It  was  represented  to  the  king  that  this  would  be  to  his  advan- 
tage, as  the  confiscations  would  inure  to  the  royal  treasury,  and 
he  graciously  expressed  his  assent ;  but  the  effort  was  resultless.* 

*  Monteiro,  P.  i.  Liv.  ii.  c.  30.— Rodrigo,  11.  11,  14-15.— Paramo,  p.  136.— 


CASTILE.  187 

For  the  most  part  the  orthodoxy  of  Spain  had  been  vexed  only 
with  a  few  Fraticelli  and  Waklenses,  not  numerous  enough  to  call 
for  active  repression.  The  main  trouble  lay  in  the  multitudes  of 
Jews  and  Moors  who,  under  the  law,  were  entitled  to  toleration, 
but  whom  popular  fanaticism  had  forced  to  conversion  in  great 
numbers,  and  whose  purity  of  faith  was  justly  liable  to  suspicion. 
Hereafter  I  hope  to  have  the  opportunity  of  showing  that  from 
both  the  religious  and  the  political  standpoint  of  the  age  the 
measures  taken  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  were  by  no  means  with- 
out justification,  however  mistaken  they  were  both  in  morals  and 
in  policy,  and  however  unfortunate  in  their  ultimate  results.  At 
present  it  suffices  to  point  out  this  condition  of  affairs  to  explain 
the  dissatisfaction  which  was  widely  prevalent  and  the  demand 
for  an  efficient  remedy. 

At  the  same  time  even  Spain  was  not  wholly  unmoved  by  the 
spirit  of  unrest  and  inquiry  which  marked  the  second  half  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  sapping  the  foundations  of  tradition  and  reject- 
ing the  claims  of  sacerdotalism.  About  14G0  we  learn  from  Alonso 
de  Espina  that  many  were  beginning  to  deny  the  efficacy  of  oral 
confession,  and  this  point  could  not  have  been  reached  without 
calling  in  question  many  other  doctrines  and  observances  which 
the  Church  taught  to  be  necessary  to  salvation.  At  length  these 
innovators  grew  so  bold  that  Pedro  de  Osma,  a  professor  in  the 
great  University  of  Salamanca,  ventured  to  promulgate  their  ob- 
noxious opinions  in  print.  Oral  confession,  he  asserted,  was  of 
human,  not  of  divine  precept,  and  was  unnecessary  for  the  forgive- 
ness of  sins ;  no  papal  indulgence  could  insure  the  living  from  the 
fires  of  purgatory ;  the  papacy  could  err,  and  had  no  power  to 
dispense  with  the  statutes  of  the  Church.  Had  there  been  any 
machinery  of  persecution  at  hand,  short  work  would  have  been 
made  with  so  bold  a  heretic,  but  the  authorities  were  so  much  at 
a  loss  what  to  do  with  him  that  they  applied  to  Sixtus  IV.,  who 
sent  a  commission  to  Alonso  CarriUo,  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  the 
dignitary  next  in  rank  to  the  king,  to  tr}-  him.  In  1470  a  council 
was  assembled  for  the  purpose  at  Alcala,  consisting  of  fifty-two 
of  the  best  theologians  in  Spain,  besides  a  number  of  canon  law- 


Raynald.  ann.  1453,  No.  19.— Alphons.  de  Spina  Fortalic.  Fidei  Prolog,  fol.  565 
(Ed.  1494). 


188  THE   SPANISH   PENINSULA. 

yers.  Pedro  was  summoned  to  appear,  and  on  his  failing  to  do  so 
his  doctrine  was  condemned  as  heretical,  and  he  was  sentenced — 
not  to  the  stake  for  contumacy,  but  to  recant  publicly  in  the 
pulpit.  He  submitted  and  did  so,  and  we  are  told  in  the  official 
report  of  the  proceedings  that  all  the  faithful  burst  into  tears  at 
this  signal  manifestation  of  the  conquering  hand  of  God.  Pedro 
died  peacefully  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church  during  the  next  year, 
1480,  and  Sixtus  IV.,  in  confirming  the  action  of  the  council, 
ordered  the  archbishop  to  prosecute  as  heretics  any  of  his  follow- 
ers who  would  not  imitate  his  obedience.* 

Evidently  some  more  efficient  and  less  cumbrous  method  was 
requisite  if  the  population  of  reunited  Spain  was  to  enjoy  the 
blessing  of  uniformity  in  faith.  It  did  not  take  long  for  the 
piety  of  Isabella  and  the  poMcy  of  Ferdinand  to  discover  appro- 
priate means. 


In  Portugal,  Affonso  II.,  at  the  commencement  of  his  reign, 
in  1211,  had  manifested  his  zeal  by  inducing  his  Cortes  to  adopt 
severe  laws  for  the  repression  of  heresy  ;  but  Avhen  Sueiro  Gomes, 
the  first  Dominican  Provincial  of  Spain,  endeavored  to  introduce 
in  his  kingdom  inquisitors  of  the  order,  Affonso  refused  to  admit 
them,  and  successfully  insisted  that  heretics  should  be  tried  as 
heretofore  by  the  ordinary  episcopal  courts.  This  rebuff  sufficed 
for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half,  and  there  must  have  been  con- 
siderable freedom  of  thought,  for,  about  1325,  Alvaro  Pelayo  gives 
a  long  list  of  the  errors  publicly  defended  in  the  schools  of  Lisbon 
by  Thomas  Scotus,  a  renegade  friar.  Their  nature  may  be  appre- 
ciated from  his  Averrhoistic  assertion  that  there  had  been  three 
deceivers — Moses  who  deceived  the  Jews,  Christ  the  Christians, 
and  Mahomet  the  Saracens.  He  seems  to  have  enjoyed  immunity 
until  he  declared  that  St.  Antony  of  Padua  kept  concubines,  when 
the  Franciscan  prior  had  him  incarcerated,  and  his  trial  followed. 
At  last,  by  a  bull,  dated  January  17, 1376,  Gregory  XL  authorized 
Agapito  Colonna,  Bishop  of  Lisbon,  to  appoint,  for  this  time  only, 
a  Franciscan  inquisitor,  as  heresies  were  known  to  be  spreading, 

*  Alphons.  de  Castro  adv.  Hasreses  Lib.  iii.  s.  v.  Cmfessio. — Illescas,  Historia 
Pontifical,  Lib.  vi.  c.  18.— Aguirre  Concil.  Hispan.  V.  351-8. — D'Argentrg,  I.  ii. 
298-302. 


PORTUGAL.  Ig9 

and  there  were  no  inquisitors  in  the  kingdom.  The  nominee  was 
to  receive  an  annual  salary  of  two  hundred  gold  florins  assessed 
upon  all  the  dioceses  in  the  proportion  of  their  contributions  to 
the  apostolic  chamber.  Under  this  authority  Agapito  appointed 
the  first  Portuguese  inquisitor,  Martino  Yasquez.  From  what  we 
have  seen  elsewhere  we  may  reasonably  doubt  his  success  in  col- 
lecting his  stipend  ;  but,  small  as  his  receipts  may  have  been,  they 
were  the  equivalent  of  his  service,  for  no  trace  of  any  labors  per- 
formed by  him  remains.* 

The  Great  Schism  commenced  in  1378,  and  as  Portugal  ac- 
knowledged Urban  YI.  while  Spain  adhered  to  the  antipope  Clem- 
ent YIL,  the  Dominican  province  of  Spain  divided  itself,  the 
Portuguese  choosing  a  vicar -general,  and  finally  a  provincial, 
Gongalo,  in  1418,  when  Martin  Y.  legalized  the  separation.  This 
perhaps  explains  why  Martino  Yasquez  was  succeeded  by  another 
Franciscan.  In  1394  Kodrigo  de  Cintra,  calling  himself  Inquisitor 
of  Portugal  and  Algarve,  applied  to  Boniface  IX.  for  confirma- 
tion, which  was  graciously  accorded  to  him.  Apparently  the 
revenues  of  the  ofiice  were  nil,  for  the  privilege  was  granted  to 
him  of  residing  with  one  associate  at  will  in  any  Franciscan  con- 
vent, which  was  bound  to  minister  to  his  necessities,  the  same  as 
to  any  other  master  of  theology.  Kodrigo  was  preacher  to  King 
Joao  L,  who  requested  this  favor  of  Boniface,  and  his  career,  hke 
that  of  his  predecessor,  is  a  blank.  He  was  followed  by  a  Do- 
minican, Yicente  de  Lisboa,  who  had  been  Provincial  of  Spain  at 
the  time  of  the  disruption,  when  he  returned  to  Portugal  and  be- 
came confessor  of  Dom  Joao.  The  king,  in  1399,  requested  of 
Boniface  his  appointment  as  inquisitor,  which  was  duly  granted ; 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  in  1401,  the  pope  endeavored  to  extend  his 
jurisdiction  over  Castile  and  Leon.  No  trace  of  his  inquisitorial 
activity  exists.  After  his  death,  in  1401,  there  appears  to  have 
been  an  interval.  The  ofiice  apparently  was  regarded  as  a  per- 
quisite of  the  royal  chapel  for  those  who  would  condescend  to  ac- 
cept it.  The  next  appointment  of  which  we  hear  is  that  of  another 
confessor  of  Dom  Joao,  in  1413,  this  time  a  Franciscan,  Affonso 
de  Alprao,  of  whose  doings  no  record  has  been  preserved.    When, 


*  Herculano,  I.  40. —  Monteiro,  P.  i.  Liv.  ii.  c.  34. —  Pelayo,  TTetcrodoxos 
Espanoles,  I.  782-3. 


190  THE   SPANISH   PENINSULA. 

in  1418,  the  kingdom  was  reorganized  as  an  independent  Domini- 
can province,  the  earnest  annahsts  of  the  Inquisition  assume  that 
under  the  bull  of  Boniface  IX.,  in  1402,  each  successive  provincial 
was  likewise  an  inquisitor-general,  and  the  lists  of  these  worthies 
are  laboriously  paraded  as  such,  until  the  founding  of  the  New 
Inquisition  in  1531.  Ko  acts  of  theirs  in  such  capacity,  however, 
are  recorded.  The  Holy  Office  continued  dormant,  without  even 
a  titular  official,  until,  in  the  early  years  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
Dom  Manoel,  stimulated  by  the  example  of  his  Castilian  neigh- 
bors, and  feehng  soMcitude  as  to  the  status  of  the  ISTew  Christians, 
or  converts  from  Judaism  and  Islam,  bethought  him  of  its  revival. 
Although  he  had  the  Dominican  provincial  at  hand,  no  purpose  of 
utilizing  him  in  this  manner  seems  to  have  been  entertained.  The 
king  applied  to  the  pope  and  obtained  the  appointment  of  a  Fran- 
ciscan, Henrique  de  Coimbra,  but  there  is  no  trace  of  liis  activity.* 
The  I^ew  Inquisition  of  Spain  was  a  model  which  the  smaller 
kingdom  would  naturally  be  expected  to  adopt,  and  in  fact,  to 
ardent  Catholics,  there  might  well  seem  to  be  a  necessity  for  such 
an  institution  in  view  of  the  problems  arising  from  the  large  influx 
of  New  Christians  flying  from  Spanish  persecution.  Dom  Manoel, 
indeed,  at  one  time  entertained  so  seriously  the  idea  of  establish- 
ing the  Spanish  Inquisition  in  his  dominions  that,  in  1515,  he 
ordered  his  ambassador  at  Rome,  D.  Miguel  da  Silva,  to  obtain 
from  Leo  X.  the  same  privileges  as  those  which  had  been  conceded 
to  Castile,  but  from  some  cause  the  project  was  abandoned.  His 
son,  Dom  Joao  III.,  who  succeeded  him  in  1521,  was  a  weak- 
minded  fanatic,  and  it  is  only  singular  that  the  introduction  of  the 
Inquisition  on  the  Spanish  model  was  delayed  for  still  ten  years. 
The  struggle  which  took  place  over  the  measure  belongs,  however, 
to  a  period  beyond  our  present  limits,  f 

*  Llorente,  Ch.  ni.  Art.  ii.  No.  24.— Monteiro,  P.  i.  Liv.  ii.  c.  35,  37,  38,  39. 
—Wadding,  ann.  1394,  No.  4  ;  1418,  No.  4.— Ripoll  II.  389. 
+  Herculano,  Da  Origem,  etc.,  da  Inquisi9ao,  I.  163-5. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ITALY. 

In  France  we  have  seen  the  stubbornness  of  heresy  in  alliance 
with  feudalism  resisting  the  encroachments  of  monarchy.  In 
Italy  we  meet  with  different  and  more  compHcated  conditions, 
which  gave  additional  stimulus  to  antagonism  against  the  estab- 
lished Church,  and  rendered  its  suppression  a  work  of  much  greater 
detail.  Here  heresy  and  pohtics  are  so  inextricably  intermingled 
that  at  times  differentiation  becomes  virtually  impossible,  and  the 
fate  of  heretics  depends  more  on  political  vicissitudes  than  even 
on  the  zeal  of  men  hke  St.  Peter  Martyr,  or  Rainerio  Saccone. 

For  centuries  the  normal  condition  of  Italy  was  not  far  re- 
moved from  anarchy.  Spasmodic  attempts  of  the  empire  to  make 
good  its  traditional  claim  to  overlordship  were  met  by  the  steady 
policy  of  the  papacy  to  extend  its  temporal  power  over  the  Penin- 
sula. During  the  century  occupied  by  the  reigns  of  the  Hohen- 
staufens  (1152-1254),  when  the  empire  seemed  nearest  to  accom- 
phshing  its  ends,  the  popes  sought  to  erect  a  rampart  by  stimulating 
the  attempts  of  the  cities  to  establish  their  independence  and  fonn 
self-governing  republics,  and  it  thus  created  for  itself  a  party  in 
all  of  them.  North  of  the  Patrimony  of  St.  Peter  the  soil  of  Italy 
thus  became  fractioned  into  petty  states  under  institutions  more 
or  less  democratic.  For  the  most  part  they  were  torn  with  savage 
internal  feuds  between  factions  which,  as  Guelf  or  Ghibelline, 
hoisted  the  banner  of  pope  or  kaiser  as  an  excuse  for  tearing  each 
other  to  pieces.  As  a  rule,  they  were  involved  in  constant  war 
with  each  other.  Occasionally,  indeed,  some  overmastering  neces- 
sity might  bring  about  a  temporary  union,  as  when  the  Lombard 
League,  in  1177,  broke  the  Barbarossa's  power  on  the  field  of 
Legnano,  but,  in  general,  the  chronicles  of  that  dismal  period  are 
a  confused  mass  of  murderous  strife  inside  and  outside  the  gates 
of  every  town. 


192  ITALY. 

Heresy  could  scarce  ask  conditions  more  favorable  for  its  spread. 
The  Church,  worldly  to  the  core,  was  immersed  in  temporal  cares 
and  pleasures,  and  during  the  strife  between  Alexander  III.  and 
the  four  antipopes  successively  set  up  by  Frederic  I. — Victor,  Pas- 
cal, Calixtus,  and  Innocent — the  enforcement  of  orthodoxy  was 
out  of  the  question.  After  the  triumph  of  the  papacy,  stringent 
decrees,  as  we  have  seen,  were  issued  by  Lucius  III.,  and  edicts 
were  promulgated  by  Henry  YI.  in  1194,  and  by  Otho  lY.  in  1210, 
but  they  were  practically  inefficient.  When  every  town  was 
divided  against  itself  heresy  could  bargain  for  toleration  by  hold- 
ing the  balance  of  power,  and  was  frequently  able,  by  throwing 
its  weight  on  one  side  or  the  other,  to  obtain  a  share  in  the 
government.  The  larger  struggles  of  city  against  city  and  of 
pope  against  emperor  afforded  a  still  wider  field  for  the  exercise 
of  this  diplomatic  ability,  of  which  full  advantage  was  taken. 
When  the  formulas  of  persecution  became  defined  under  Honorius 
III.,  Gregory  IX.,  and  Frederic  II.,  and  fautorship  was  made 
equivalent  to  heresy,  the  factions  and  the  nobles  who  tolerated  or 
protected  heretics  became  involved  in  the  common  anathema, 
and  whole  communities  were  stigmatized  as  given  over  to  false 
idols.  Yet  although  GhibeUine  and  heretic  were  frequently  held 
by  the  popes  to  be  almost  convertible  terms,  there  was  in  reality 
no  test  capable  of  universal  application.  Traditional  hostility  to 
the  empire  rendered  Milan  an  intensely  Guelf  community,  and  yet 
it  was  everywhere  recognized  as  the  greatest  centre  of  heresy. 

Though  heresy  was  by  no  means  so  universal  as  the  papal 
anathemas  would  indicate,  yet  heretics  were  quite  numerous 
enough  to  possess  political  importance,  and  to  have  some  justifi- 
cation for  their  hopes  of  eventually  loecoming  dominant.  Little 
concealment  was  deemed  necessary.  When  Otho  lY.  was  in  Rome 
for  his  coronation  in  1209,  under  the  vigilant  rule  of  Innocent  HI., 
the  ecclesiastics  who  accompanied  him  were  scandalized  at  finding 
schools  where  Manichaean  doctrines  were  openly  taught,  appar- 
ently without  interference.  The  earlier  Dominican  persecutors 
are  represented  as  constantly  holding  public  disputations  with 
heretics  in  the  most  populous  cities  of  Italy,  and  the  miracles  re- 
lated of  them  were  mostly  occasioned  by  the  taunts  and  challenges 
of  heretics.  Otho,  at  Ferrara,  in  1210,  was  obhged  to  order  the 
magistrates  to  put  to  the  ban  the  Cathari  who  refused,  at  the 


THE    CATHARAN    CHURCHES.  193 

instance  of  the  bishop,  to  return  to  the  Church,  and  also  those 
who  publicly  supported  them,* 

Although  Stephen  of  Bourbon  relates  that  a  converted  heretic 
informed  htm  that  in  MUan  there  were  no  less  than  seventeen 
heterodox  sects  which  bitterly  disputed  with  each  other,  yet  they 
can,  as  in  France,  be  reduced  to  two  main  classes — Cathari,  or  Pa- 
tarins,  and  Waldenses.  The  Cathari,  it  will  be  remembered,  made 
their  appearance  in  the  first  half  of  the  eleventh  century,  at  Mon- 
forte,  in  Lombardy,  and  they  had  continued  to  multiply  since 
then.  About  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  Rainerio  Sac- 
cone  gives  us  an  enumeration  of  their  churches.  In  Lombardy  and 
the  Marches  there  were  about  five  hundred  perfected  Cathari  of 
the  Albanensian  sect,  more  than  fifteen  hundred  Concorrezenses, 
and  about  two  hundred  Bajolenses.  The  Church  of  Vicenza 
reckoned  about  a  hundred ;  there  were  as  many  in  Florence  and 
Spoleto,  and  in  addition  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  refugees  from 
France  in  Lombardy.  As  he  estimates  the  total  number,  from 
Constantinople  to  the  Pyrenees,  at  four  thousand,  mth  a  countless 
congregation  of  believers,  it  will  be  seen  that  nearly  two  thirds  of 
the  whole  number  were  concentrated  in  northern  Italy,  chiefly  in 
Lombardy,  and  that  they  constituted  a  notable  portion  of  the 
population,  f 

Lombardy,  in  fact,  was  the  centre  whence  Catharism  was 
propagated  throughout  Europe.  We  have  seen  above  how  for 
more  than  half  a  century  it  served  as  a  refuge  to  the  persecuted 
saints  of  Languedoc,  and  as  a  source  whence  to  draw  missionaries 
and  teachers.  About  1240  a  certain  Yvo  of  Narbonne  was  false- 
ly accused  of  heresy  and  fled  to  Italy,  where  he  was  received  as  a 
martyr,  and  had  fuU  opportunity  of  penetrating  into  the  secrets 
of  the  sectaries.  In  a  letter  to  Geraud,  Archbishop  of  BordeaoK, 
he  describes  their  thorough  organization  throughout  Italy,  with 
ramifications  extending  into  aU  the  neighboring  lands.  From 
^11  the  cities  of  Lombardy  and  Tuscany  their  j^outh  were  sent  to 
Paris  to  perfect  themselves  in  logic  and  theology,  so  as  to  be 
able  successfully  to  defend  their  errors.     Catharan  merchants 

*  Caesar.  Heisterbacens.  Dial.  Mirac.  Dist.  v.  c.  25. — Muratori  Autiq.  Ital.  Diss. 
LX.  (T.  XII.  p.  447). 

t  D'Argentrg,  Coll.  Judic.  de  novis  Error.  I.  i.  86. — Reinerii  Summa  (Martene 
Thesaur.  V.  1767). 
IL— 13 


194  ITALY. 

frequented  fairs  and  obtained  entrance  into  houses  where  they 
lost  no  opportunity  of  scattering  the  seed  of  false  doctrine.  Full 
of  zeal  and  courage,  the  Catharan  believed  his  faith  to  be  the  re- 
ligion of  the  future,  and  his  ardor  courted  martyrdom  in  the  ef- 
fort to  spread  it  everywhere.  Milan  was  the  headquarters  whither 
every  year  delegates  were  sent  from  the  churches  throughout 
Christendom,  bringing  contributions  for  the  support  of  the  central 
organization,  and  receiving  instructions  as  to  the  symbol,  changed 
every  twelvemonth,  whereby  the  wandering  Patarin  could  recog- 
nize the  houses  of  his  brethren  and  safely  claim  hospitality.  It 
was  in  vain  that,  in  1212,  Innocent  III.  warned  the  heretical  city 
of  the  fate  of  Languedoc,  and  threatened  to  send  a  similar  crusade 
for  its  extirpation.  Fortunately  for  the  Lombards  he  had  no  one 
to  summon  to  their  destruction,  for  Germany,  however  desirous 
of  conquering  Italy,  was  too  distracted  for  such  an  enterprise,  and 
the  popes  dreaded  imperial  domination  quite  as  much  as  heresy. 
There  was  bitter  irony  in  the  reply  of  Frederic  II.,  when,  in  1236, 
he  was  subduing  the  rebellious  Lombards,  and  he  answered  the 
clamor  of  Gregory  IX.,  who  called  upon  him  to  transfer  his  arms 
to  Syria,  by  pointing  out  that  the  Milanese  were  much  worse  than 
Saracens,  and  their  subjugation  much  more  important.* 

We  have  no  means  of  obtaining  an  approximate  estimate  of 
the  Waldenses,  but  in  some  districts  they  must  have  been  almost 
as  numerous  as  the  Cathari.  The  remains  of  the  Arnaldistse  and 
Umiliati  had  eagerly  welcomed  the  missionaries  of  the  Poor  Men 
of  Lyons,  and  had  not  only  adopted  their  tenets,  but  had  pushed 
them  to  a  further  development  in  antagonism  to  Rome.  As  early 
as  1206  we  see  Innocent  III.  alluding  to  Umihati  and  Poor  Men 
of  Lyons  as  synonymous  expressions,  and  endeavoring  with  little 
success  to  effect  their  expulsion  from  Faenza,  where  they  were 
spreading  and  infecting  the  people.  In  Milan  they  had  built  a 
school  where  they  publicly  taught  their  doctrines ;  this  was  at 
length  torn  down  by  a  zealous  archbishop,  and  when,  in  1209, 
Duran  de  Huesca  sought  to  bring  them  back  to  the  fold,  a  hun- 
dred or  more  of  them  consented  to  be  reconciled  if  the  building 


*  Matt.  Paris,  ann.  1236,  p.  293;  ann.  1243,  pp.  412-13  (Ed.  1644).— Trithem. 
Chron.  Hirsaug.  ann.  1230.— Innoc.  PP.  III.  Regest.  xv.  189.— Hist.  Djplom.  Frid. 
n.  T.  IV.  p.  881. 


THE    WALDENSES.  I95 

were  restored  to  them.  Evidently  they  had  little  to  dread  from 
active  persecution,  and  subsequent  letters  of  Innocent  show  them 
to  be  still  flourishing  there.  The  Waldenses  who  were  burned  at 
Strassburg  in  1212  admitted  that  their  chief  resided  in  Milan,  and 
that  they  were  in  the  habit  of  collecting  money  and  remitting  it 
to  him.* 

It  was,  however,  in  the  valleys  of  the  Cottian  Alps,  to  which 
they  spread  from  Dauphine,  that  they  settled  themselves  most 
firmly.  In  those  inhospitable  regions,  till  then  almost  uninhab- 
ited, their  marvellous  and  self-denying  industry  occupied  every 
spot  where  incessant  labor  could  support  life.  There  they  rapid- 
ly increased  and  filled  the  vaUeys  of  Luserna,  Angrogna,  San  Mar- 
tino,  and  Perosa.  In  1210  Giacomo  di  Carisio,  Bishop  of  Turin, 
alarmed  at  the  constant  growth  of  this  heresy  in  his  diocese,  ap- 
plied to  Otho  IV.  for  aid  in  its  suppression,  but  the  emperor  in 
reply  merely  ordered  him  to  use  severity  in  their  punishment  and 
expulsion.  Authority  for  this  he  already  had  in  abundance  under 
the  canons,  but  he  lacked  the  physical  force  to  render  it  effective, 
and  the  imperial  rescript  went  for  naught.  This  shows  that  the 
local  suzerains  took  no  measures  to  enforce  persecution,  and  the 
heretics  continued  to  increase.  The  immediate  sovereign  of  the 
district  most  deeply  infected  was  the  Abbey  of  Ripaille,  which 
found  itself  unable  to  control  them,  and  made  over  its  temporal 
rights  to  Tommaso  I.,  Count  of  Savoy.  He  issued  an  edict,  to 
which  I  have  already  referred,  imposing  a  fine  of  ten  sols  for 
giving  refuge  to  heretics,  which  proved  altogether  ineffective. 
Thus,  in  the  absence  of  efficient  repression,  were  established 
those  Alpine  communities  whose  tenacity  of  belief  supplied 
through  centuries  an  unfailing  succession  of  humble  mart^^rs, 
and  who  ennobled  human  nature  by  their  marvellous  example 
of  constancy  and  endurance,  f 


*  Montet,  Hist.  litt.  des  Vaudois  du  Pigmout,  pp.  40-1.— Innoc.  PP.  IH.  Re- 
gest.  IX.  18,  19,  204  ;  xii.  17 ;  xiir.  63.— Kaltner,  Konrad  v.  Marburg,  pp.  42,  44.— 
Annal.  Marbacens.  ann.  1231  (Urstisii  Germ.  Hist.  Scriptt.  H.  90). 

t  Bobmer,  Regest.  Imp.  V.  110.  — Comba,  La  Riforma  in  Italia,  I.  254-57. — 
Ejnsd.  Histoire  des  Vaudois  d'ltalie,  I.  124  sqq.,  140.— Charvaz,  Origine  dei  Val- 
desi,  App.  No.  xxii. 

Giuseppe  Manuel  di  S.  Giovanni  (Un'  Episodia  della  Storia  del  Piemonte, 
Torino,  1874,  pp.  15-21)  argues  that  tbe  letter  of  Otho  IV.  is  only  the  draft  of  one 


196  ITALY. 

Although  the  Lombard  Waklenses  admitted  their  descent  from 
the  Poor  Men  of  Lyons,  their  more  rapid  development  gave  rise 
to  differences,  and  in  1218  a  conference  was  held  at  Bergamo  be- 
tween delegates  of  both  parties.  This  did  not  succeed  in  remov- 
ing the  points  of  dissidence,  and  about  1230  the  Lombards  sent  to 
the  brethren  in  Germany  a  statement  of  the  discussion  and  of 
their  views.  It  is  not  our  province  to  enter  into  these  minute  de- 
tails of  faith  and  Church  government,  but  the  affair  is  worth  allud- 
ing to  as  illustrating  the  flourishing  condition  of  the  Church,  the 
practical  toleration  which  it  enjoyed,  and  the  active  communica- 
tion which  existed  between  its  organizations  throughout  Europe.* 

The  aggressiveness  of  the  heretics,  the  favor  shown  them  by 
the  people,  and  the  impossibility  of  any  systematic  suppression  by 
the  Church  under  existing  political  conditions  are  well  exhibited 
in  the  troubles  which  commenced  at  Piacenza  in  1204.  There  the 
heretics  were  strong  enough  to  provoke  a  quarrel  between  the  au- 
thorities and  Bishop  Grimerio,  which  resulted  in  either  the  with- 
drawal or  the  expulsion  of  the  prelate  and  all  the  clergy.  The 
exiles  transferred  themselves  to  Cremona,  but  in  1205  that  city 
likewise  quarrelled  with  its  pastors,  and  the  wanderers  were  again 
driven  forth,  to  find  a  refuge  in  Castell'  Arquato.  For  three  years 
and  a  half  Piacenza  remained  without  an  orthodox  priest,  and 
deprived  of  all  the  observances  and  consolations  of  religion.  So 
weak  was  the  hold  of  the  Church  upon  the  people  that  this  de- 
privation was  acquiesced  in  with  the  utmost  indifference.  In  Oc- 
tober, 1206,  Innocent  III.  sent  three  Apostohc  Yisitors  to  effect  a 
reconciUation,  with  a  threat  of  dividing  the  diocese  and  apportion- 
ing it  among  the  neighboring  sees,  but  the  citizens  cared  nothing 
for  this,  and  refused  the  terms  demanded,  which  required  them  to 
compensate  their  bishop  for  the  damage  inflicted  on  him.  After 
some  six  months  wasted  in  fruitless  negotiations  the  Yisitors  de- 
parted, and  it  was  not  till  July,  1207,  that  another  commission,  of- 
fering more  favorable  conditions,  succeeded  in  effecting  a  recon- 


which  the  bishop  desired  to  procure,  but  the  question  is  merely  of  archaeological 
interest,  for  in  either  case  it  was  equally  ineffective. 

*  Rescript.  Heres.  Lombard.  (Preger,  Beitrage,  Miincheu,  1875,  pp.  56-63).— 
Eeinerii  Summa  (Martene  Thesaur.  V.  1775). 


IMPEDIMENTS    TO    PERSECUTION.  197 

ciliation  which  enabled  the  clergy  to  return  from  exile.  About 
the  same  period  Innocent  found  himself  obliged  to  use  persuasion 
and  argument  in  the  endeavor  to  urge  the  people  of  Treviso  to 
expel  their  heretics.  So  far  from  threatening  them,  he  begged 
them  to  have  faith  that  their  bishop  would  reform  the  excesses 
of  the  clergy  whose  evil  example  had  disturbed  them.  It  is  easy 
thus  to  understand  the  exulting  confidence  with  which  the  heretics 
anticipated  the  eventual  triumph  of  their  creeds,  and  the  despair 
Avhich  led  Abbot  Joachim  of  Flora,  in  expounding  the  Apocalypse, 
to  see  in  them  the  locusts  with  the  power  of  scorpions  who  issue 
from  the  bottomless  pit  at  the  sounding  of  the  fifth  trumpet  (Eev. 
IX.  3,  4).  These  heretics  are  the  Antichrist ;  they  are  to  grow  in 
power  and  their  king  is  already  chosen,  that  king  of  the  locusts 
"  whose  name  in  the  Hebrew  tongue  is  Abaddon,  but  in  the  Greek 
tongue  hath  his  name  Apollyon  "  (Kev.  ix.  11).  Resistance  to  them 
will  be  in  vain  ;  they  are  to  unite  with  the  Saracens,  with  whom, 
in  1195,  he  says  they  are  already  entering  into  negotiations.* 

"When  Honorius  III.,  in  1220,  obtained  from  Frederic  II.  the 
ferocious  coronation-edict  against  heresy,  he  may  weU  have  im- 
agined that  the  way  was  open  for  its  immediate  suppression.  If 
so,  he  was  not  long  in  discovering  his  mistake.  Whatever  pro- 
fessions Frederic  might  make,  or  whatever  rigor  he  might  exer- 
cise in  his  Sicilian  dominions,  it  was  no  part  of  his  policy  to  es- 
trange the  Ghibelline  leaders,  or  to  strengthen  the  Guelfic  factions 
in  the  turbulent  little  republics  which  he  sought  to  reduce  to  sub- 
jection. His  whole  reign  was  an  internecine  conflict,  open  or  con- 
cealed, with  Rome,  and  he  was  too  much  of  a  free-thinker  to  have 
any  scruples  as  to  the  sources  whence  he  could  draw  strength  for 
himself  or  annoyance  for  his  enemy.  In  central  and  upper  Italy, 
therefore,  his  laws  were  for  the  most  part  virtually  a  dead  letter. 
Alread}^,  in  1221,  Ezzelin  da  Romano,  the  most  powerful  Ghibel- 
line in  the  March  of  Treviso,  was  complained  of  for  the  protection 
which  he  afforded  to  heretics,  and  his  continuing  to  do  so  to  the 
end  shows  that  he  found  it  to  be  good  policy.     "When,  in  1227, 


*  Campi,  Deir  Historia  Ecclesiastica  di  Piacenza,  P.  ii.  pp.  92  sqq. — Innoc.  PP. 
III.  Regest.  IX.  131,  1C6-9;  x.  54,  64,  222.— Tocco,  L'Hercsia  nel  l\[e(lio  Evo,  pp. 
364,  366  (Fireoze,  1884). — Cf.  Pseudo-Joachim  de  septem  temporibus  Ecclesiae 
P.v. 


198  ITALY. 

Ingheramo  da  Macerata,  the  late  podesta  of  Kimini,  was  perse- 
cuted by  the  citizens  because  he  had  delivered  for  burning  as 
heretics  some  of  their  daughters  and  sisters,  and  because  he  had 
wished  to  inscribe  on  their  statute-books  the  constitutions  of  Fred- 
eric, it  was  not  to  the  emperor  that  he  appMed  for  protection,  but 
to  Honorius  III,* 

Something  more  than  imperial  edicts  was  plainly  necessary, 
and  Honorius,  in  casting  around  for  methods  to  check  the  spread 
of  heresy,  appointed,  in  1224,  the  Bishops  of  Brescia  and  Modena 
as  commissioners  with  special  powers  to  exterminate  the  heretics 
of  Lombardy — as  inquisitors,  in  fact,  this  being  one  of  the  steps 
which  gradually  led  to  the  establishment  of  the  Inquisition,  the 
usefulness  of  the  Dominicans  in  this  respect  not  having  yet  been 
divined.  The  Bishop  of  Modena,  however,  undertook  a  mission 
to  convert  the  pagans  of  Prussia,  and  the  Bishop  of  Rimini  was 
substituted  in  his  place.  The  prelates  commenced  with  Brescia 
itself,  whose  prelate  doubtless  knew  where  to  strike.  They  or- 
dered the  tearing  down  of  certain  houses  where  heretical  preach- 
ers had  been  accustomed  to  hold  forth.  At  once  an  armed  insur- 
rection broke  out.  The  perennial  factions  of  the  city  took  sides. 
Several  churches  were  burned,  and  the  heretics  parodied  from  them 
the  anathema  by  casting  lighted  torches  from  the  windows,  and 
solemnly  excommunicating  all  members  of  the  Church  of  Eome, 
It  was  not  until  after  a  severe  and  prolonged  conflict  that  the 
Catholics  obtained  the  upper  hand,  and  then  the  terms  prescribed 
by  Honorius  were  so  mild  as  to  indicate  that  it  was  not  deemed 
politic  to  drive  the  defeated  party  to  despair.  AU  excommuni- 
cates were  required  to  apply  personally  for  absolution  to  the  Holy 
See.  The  fortified  houses  of  the  lords  of  Gambara,  of  Ugona,  of 
the  Oriani,  of  the  sons  of  Botatio,  who  had  been  the  leaders  in  the 
troubles,  were  ordered  to  be  razed  to  the  ground,  never  to  be  re- 
built, while  other  strongholds,  which  had  been  defended  against 
the  Catholics,  were  to  be  cut  down  one-third  or  one-half.  Beni- 
ficed  clerks  who  were  children  of  heretics  or  of  fautors  were  to  be 
suspended  for  three  years  or  more  as  their  individual  participation 
in  the  troubles  might  indicate.  A  levy  of  three  hundred  and  thirty 
lire  was  ordered  on  the  clergy  of  Lombardy  and  the  Trivigiana 


*  Epistt.  Ssecul.  XIH.  T.  I.  No.  451  (Mon.  Hist.  Germ.J.— Potthast  No.  7672. 


EFFORTS    OF    GREGORY    IX.  199 

to  recompense  the  Catholics  for  the  losses  endured  in  contending 
with  the  heretics.  So  unaccustomed  as  yet  were  the  Lombards  to 
persecution  that  even  these  conditions  were  deemed  too  harsh. 
The  city  of  Milan  interceded,  and  finally  even  the  authorities  of 
Brescia  itself  urged  that  moderation  would  be  conducive  to  peace ; 
and,  May  1,  1226,  Honorius  authorized  the  bishops  to  use  their 
discretion  in  diminishing  the  penalties.  When,  however,  the  Do- 
minican Guala  was  elected  Bishop  of  Brescia  in  1230,  he  speedily 
succeeded  in  introducing  in  the  local  statutes  the  law  of  Frederic, 
of  March,  1224,  which  decreed  for  heretics  the  stake  or  loss  of  the 
tongue,  and  he  forced  the  podesta  to  swear  to  its  execution.* 

Gregory  IX.  was  a  man  of  sterner  temper  than  Honorius,  and, 
despite  his  octogenary  age,  his  advent  to  the  pontificate,  in  1227, 
was  the  signal  for  unrelenting  war  on  heresy.  Within  three 
weeks  of  his  accession  peace  was  signed,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
papacy,  between  Frederic  II.  and  the  Lombard  League,  with  pro- 
visions for  the  suppression  of  heresy.  Gregory  immediately,  in 
the  most  imperious  fashion,  summoned  the  Lombards  to  perform 
their  duty.  Hitherto,  he  told  them,  aU  their  pretended  efforts  had 
been  fraudulent,  l^o  enforcement  of  the  imperial  constitutions 
had  been  attempted.  If  the  heretics  had  at  any  time  been  driven 
away,  it  was  with  a  secret  understanding  that  they  would  be  al- 
lowed to  return  and  dwell  in  peace.  If  fines  had  been  inflicted, 
the  money  had  been  covertly  refunded.  If  statutes  had  been  en- 
acted, there  was  always  a  reservation  by  which  they  were  ren- 
dered ineffective.  Thus  heresy  had  grown  and  strengthened  while 
the  liberties  of  the  Church  had  been  subverted.  Heretics  had 
been  permitted  to  preach  their  doctrines  publicly,  while  ecclesias- 
tics had  been  outlawed  and  imprisoned.  All  this  must  cease,  the 
provisions  of  the  treaty  of  peace  must  be  enforced,  and,  if  they 
continued  in  their  evil  courses,  the  Holy  See  would  find  means  to 
coerce  them  in  their  perversity,  f 

These  were  brave  words,  though  the  political  condition  of 
Lombardy  rendered  them  ineffective.  Nearer  home,  however, 
Gregory  had  fairer  opportunity  of  enforcing  his  will,  and  we  have 


*  Epistt.  Ssec.  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  264-66,  2V5,  295  (Mon.  Hist.  Germ.).  — Havet, 
Bibl.  de  I'ficole  des  Chartes,  1880,  p.  602. 
t  Epistt.  Ssec.  Xni.  T.  I.  No.  355. 


900  ITALY. 

already  seen  how  promptly  he  recognized  the  utility  of  the  Ordel 
of  Dominic  and  laid  the  foundations  of  the  Inquisition  by  his  ten- 
tative action  in  Florence.  While  this  was  taking  shape  his  zeal 
was  stimulated  by  the  discovery,  in  1231,  that  in  Rome  itself  her- 
esy had  become  so  bold  that  it  ventured  to  assert  itself  openly, 
and  that  many  priests  and  other  ecclesiastics  had  been  converted. 
Probably  the  first  auto  defe  on  record  was  that  held  by  the  Sen- 
ator Annibaldo  at  the  portal  of  Santa  Maria  Maggiore,  when 
these  unfortunates  were  burned  or  condemned  to  perpetual  pris- 
on, and  Gregory  took  advantage  of  the  occasion  to  issue  the  de- 
cretal which  became  the  basis  of  inquisitorial  procedure,  and  to 
procure  the  enactment  of  severe  secular  laws  in  the  name  of  the 
senator.  The  details  I  have  already  given  (Yol.  I.  p.  325),  and 
they  need  not  be  repeated  here ;  but  Gregory  did  not  content 
himself  with  what  he  thus  accomplished  in  Rome.  His  aid  just 
then  was  desirable  to  Frederic  II.  in  his  Lombard  complications, 
and  to  Gregory's  urgency  may  doubtless  be  attributed  the  severe 
legislation  of  the  Sicilian  Constitutions,  issued  about  this  time, 
and  the  Ravenna  decrees  of  1232.  Shortly  afterwards,  indeed, 
we  find  Frederic  writing  to  him  that  they  are  like  father  and 
son ;  that  they  should  sharpen  the  spiritual  and  temporal  swords 
respectively  committed  to  them  against  heretics  and  rebels,  with- 
out wasting  effort  on  sophistry,  for  if  time  be  spent  in  disputation 
nature  wiU  succumb  to  disease.  It  is  not  probable  that  Gregory 
counted  much  on  the  zeal  of  the  emperor,  but  he  sent  the  edict  of 
Annibaldo  to  Milan,  with  instructions  that  it  be  adopted  and  en- 
forced there.  Already,  in  1228,  his  legate,  Goffredo,  Cardinal  of 
San  Marco,  had  obtained  of  the  Milanese  the  enactment  of  a  law 
by  which  the  houses  of  heretics  were  to  be  destroyed,  and  the 
secular  authorities  were  required  to  put  to  death  within  ten  days 
all  who  were  condemned  by  the  Church ;  but  thus  far  no  execu- 
tions seem  to  have  taken  place  under  it.* 

It  was  now  that  Gregory,  seeing  the  futility  of  all  efforts  thus 
far  save  those  which  the  Dominicans  were  making  in  Florence, 


*  Raynald.  Annal.  ann.  1231,  No.  13-18.  —  Constit.  Sicular.  Lib.  i.  Tit.  i. — 
Rich.  S.  Germ.  Chron.  (Muratori,  S.  R.  L  VII.  1026).  — Vit.  Gregor.  PP.  IX.  (lb. 
m.  578).— Hist.  Diplom.  Frid.  XL  T.  IV.  pp.  299-300,  409-11.— Verri,  Storia  di 
Milano,  I.  242.— Bern.  Corio,  Hist.  Milanese,  ann.  1228. 


DOMINICANS    AS    INQUISITORS.  201 

hit  upon  the  final  and  successful  experiment  of  confiding  to  the 
Order  the  suppression  of  heresy  as  part  of  theu'  regular  duties. 
A  fresh  impulse  was  felt  all  along  the  line.  The  Church  suddenly 
found  that  it  could  count  upon  an  unexpected  reserve  of  enthusi- 
asm, boundless  and  exhaustless,  despising  danger  and  reckless  of 
consequences,  which  in  the  end  could  hardly  fail  to  triumph.  A 
new  class  of  men  now  appears  upon  the  scene — San  Piero  Mar- 
tire,  Giovanni  da  Yicenza,  Rolando  da  Cremona,  Hainerio  Sac- 
cone —  worthy  to  rank  with  their  brethren  in  Languedoc,  who 
devoted  themselves  to  what  they  held  to  be  their  duty  with  a  sin- 
gleness of  purpose  which  must  command  respect,  however  repul- 
sive their  labors  may  seem  to  us.  On  one  hand  these  men  had 
an  easier  task  than  their  "Western  colleagues,  for  they  had  not  to 
contend  with  the  jealousy,  or  submit  to  the  control,  of  the  bish- 
ops. The  independence  of  the  Italian  episcopate  had  been  broken 
down  in  the  eleventh  century.  Besides,  the  bishops  natm^ally 
belonged  to  the  Guelfic  faction,  and  welcomed  any  alUes  who 
promised  to  aid  them  in  crushing  the  antagonistic  party  in  their 
turbulent  cities.  On  the  other  hand,  the  political  dissensions 
which  raged  everywhere  with  savage  ferocity  increased  enor- 
mously the  difficulties  and  dangers  of  the  task. 

In  Italy,  as  in  France,  the  organization  of  the  Inquisition  was 
gradual.  It  advanced  step  by  step,  the  earlier  proceedings,  as  we 
have  seen  both  in  Florence  and  Toulouse,  being  characterized  by 
little  regularity.  As  the  tribunal  by  degrees  assumed  shape,  a 
definite  code  of  procedure  was  established  which  was  virtually 
the  same  everywhere,  except  with  regard  to  the  power  of  confis- 
cation, the  application  of  the  profits  of  persecution,  and  the  ac- 
quittal of  the  innocent.  To  these  attention  has  already  been 
called,  and  they  need  not  detain  us  further.  The  problems  which 
the  founders  of  the  Inquisition  had  to  meet  in  Italy,  and  the 
methods  in  which  these  were  met,  can  best  be  illustrated  by  a 
rapid  glance  at  what  remains  to  us  of  the  careers  of  some  of  the 
earnest  men  who  undertook  the  apparently  hopeless  task. 

The  earliest  name  I  have  met  with  bearing  the  title  of  Inquis- 
itor of  Lombardy  is  that  of  a  Fra  Alberico  in  1232.  The  Cardinal 
Legate  Goffredo,  whom  we  have  seen  busy  in  Milan,  undertook  to 
quiet  civil  strife  in  Bergamo,  with  the  consent  of  all  fnctions,  by 
appointing  as  podesta  Pier  Torriani  of  Milan;  and  at  the  same 


202  ITALY. 

time  he  seized  the  opportunity  to  make  a  raid  on  heretics,  a  num- 
ber of  whom  he  cast  into  prison.  No  sooner  was  his  back  turned 
than  the  citizens  refused  to  receive  his  podesta,  elected  in  his  place 
a  certain  R.  di  Madello,  and,  what  was  worse,  set  at  liberty  the 
captive  heretics.  Thereupon  the  legate  placed  the  city  under  in- 
terdict, which  brought  the  people  to  their  senses,  and  they  agreed 
to  stand  to  the  mandate  of  the  Church,  Gregory  accordingly, 
November  3, 1232,  instructed  Alberico,  as  Inquisitor  of  Lombardy, 
to  reconcile  the  city  on  condition  that  the  people  refund  to  Pier 
Torriani  all  his  expenses  and  give  sufficient  security  to  extermi- 
nate heresy.  Here  we  see  how  intimate  were  the  relations  be- 
tween pontics  and  heresy,  and  what  difficulties  the  alliance  threw 
in  the  way  of  persecution.* 

Fra  E-olando  da  Cremona  we  have  already  met  as  professor  in 
the  inchoate  University  of  Toulouse,  and  we  have  seen  how  rigid 
and  unbending  was  his  zeal.  Hardly  had  he  quitted  Languedoc 
when  we  find  him,  in  1233,  already  actively  at  work  in  the  conge- 
nial duty  of  suppressing  heresy  at  Piacenza.  The  twenty -five 
years  which  had  elapsed  since  the  Piacenzans  had  shown  them- 
selves so  indifferent  to  their  spiritual  privileges  had  not  greatly 
increased  their  respect  for  orthodoxy,  Rolando  assembled  them, 
preached  to  them,  and  then  ordered  the  podesta  to  expel  the  her- 
etics. The  result  did  not  correspond  to  his  expectations.  "With 
the  connivance  of  the  podesta,  the  heretics  and  their  friends  arose 
and  made  a  general  onslaught  on  the  clergy,  including  the  bishop 
and  the  friars,  in  which  a  monk  of  San  Sabino  was  slain  and  Ro- 
lando and  some  of  his  comrades  were  wounded.  The  Dominicans 
carried  Rolando  half -dead  from  the  city,  which  was  placed  under 
interdict  by  the  bishop.  Then  a  revulsion  of  feeling  occurred; 
Rolando  was  asked  to  return,  and  full  satisfaction  was  promised. 
He  prudently  kept  away,  but  ordered  the  imprisonment  of  the 
podesta  and  tAventy-four  others  till  the  pleasure  of  the  pope 
should  be  known.  Gregory  took  advantage  of  the  opportunity 
by  sending  thither  the  Archdeacon  of  Novara,  with  instructions  to 
place  the  city  under  control  of  the  orthodox  party,  taking  ample 
security  that  the  heretics  should  be  suppressed ;  but  this  arrange- 
ment did  not  please  the  citizens,  who  rose  again  and  liberated  the 

*  RipoU  I,  41. 


GIOVANNI    DA  VICENZA.  203 

prisoners.  Sharp  as  was  this  experience,  it  did  not  dull  the  edge 
of  Rolando's  zeal,  for  the  next  year  we  find  him  at  work  in  the 
Milanese,  where  he  received  rough  treatment  at  the  hands  of 
Lantelmo,  a  noble  who  sheltered  heretics  in  his  castle  near  Lodi. 
For  this  Lantelmo  was  condemned  to  be  led  through  the  streets, 
stripped  and  with  a  halter  around  his  neck,  to  Eolando's  presence, 
and  there  to  accept  such  penance  as  the  friar,  at  command  of  the 
pope,  might  enjoin  on  him.  A  month  later  we  hear  of  his  seizing 
two  Florentine  merchants,  Feriabente  and  Capso,  with  all  their 
goods.  They  evidently  were  persons  of  importance,  for  Gregory 
ordered  their  release  in  view  of  having  received  bail  for  them  in 
the  enormous  sum  of  two  thousand  silver  marks.* 

During  this  transition  period,  while  the  Inquisition  was  slowly 
taking  shape,  one  of  the  most  notable  of  the  Dominicans  engaged 
in  the  work  of  persecution  was  Giovanni  Schio  da  Yicenza.  I 
have  alluded  in  a  previous  chapter  to  his  marvellous  career  as  a 
pacificator,  and  it  may  perhaps  not  be  unjust  to  assume  that  his 
motive  in  employing  his  unequalled  eloquence  in  harmonizing  dis- 
cordant factions  was  not  only  the  Christian  desire  for  peace,  but 
also  to  remove  the  obstruction  to  persecution  caused  by  perpetual 
strife,  for  in  almost  all  these  movements  we  may  trace  the  con- 
nection between  heresy  and  politics.  After  his  wonderful  success 
at  Bologna,  Gregory  urged  him  to  undertake  a  similar  mission  to 
Florence,  where  constant  civic  war  was  accompanied  by  recrudes- 
cence of  heresy.  In  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  embryonic  Inquisi- 
tion there,  heresy  was  undisguised,  and  the  ministers  of  Christ 
were  openly  opposed  and  ridiculed.  Gregory  assumed  that  Gio- 
vanni acted  under  the  direct  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
did  not  venture  to  send  him  orders,  but  only  requests.  He  was, 
like  all  his  colleagues,  popularly  regarded  as  a  thaumaturgist,  and 


*  Epistt.  Ssc.  Xin.  T.  I.  No.  559.  —  Raynald.  ann.  1233,  No.  40.  —  RipoU  I. 
69,  71. 

Probably  about  this  period  may  have  occurred  tlie  incident  related  of  Mone- 
ta,  the  disciple  of  St.  Dominic,  whose  eflForts  against  the  heretics  of  Lombardy 
are  said  to  have  aroused  their  animosity  to  the  point  that  a  noble  named  Peraldo 
hired  an  assassin  to  despatch  him.  Word  was  brought  to  Moiieta,  who  seized  a 
crucifix  and  assembled  a  band  of  the  faithful,  with  whom  he  captured  Peraldo 
and  tiie  bravo,  delivered  them  to  tlie  secular  authorities,  and  they  were  both 
burned  alive.— Ricchini  Vit.  Monetis,  p.  viii. 


204  ITALY. 

stories  were  told  of  his  crossing  rivers  dry-shod,  and  causing  vult 
ures  to  descend  from  on  high  at  his  simple  command.  The 
Bolognese  were  so  loath  to  part  with  him  that  they  used  gentle 
violence  to  retain  him,  and  only  let  him  go  after  (Tregory  had 
ordered  their  city  laid  under  interdict,  and  had  threatened  to  de- 
prive of  its  episcopal  dignity  any  place  which  should  detain  him 
against  his  will.  After  completely  succeeding  in  his  mission  to 
Florence  he  was  despatched  on  a  similar  one  to  Lonibardy.  The 
League,  which  had  been  so  efficient  an  instrument  in  curbing  the 
imperial  power,  was  breaking  up.  Fears  were  entertained  that 
Frederic  would  soon  return  from  Germany  with  an  army,  and  a 
portion  of  the  Lombard  cities  and  nobles  were  disposed  to  invite 
him.  Some  countervailing  influence  was  required,  and  nothing 
more  effective  than  Giovanni's  eloquence  could  be  resorted  to. 
At  Padua,  Treviso,  ConigUano,  Ceneda,  Oderzo,  Belluno,  and  Fel- 
tre  he  preached  on  the  text  "  Blessed  are  the  feet  of  the  bearers 
of  peace"  with  such  effect  that  even  the  terrible  Ezzelin  da  Ko- 
mano  is  said  to  have  twice  burst  into  tears.  The  whole  land  was 
pacified,  save  the  ancestral  quarrel  between  Ezzelin  and  the  counts 
of  Campo  San  Piero,  which  unpardonable  wrongs  had  rendered 
implacable.  After  a  visit  to  Mantua,  the  apostle  of  peace  went 
to  Yerona,  then  besieged  by  an  army  of  Mantuans,  Bolognese, 
Brescians,  and  Faenzans,  where  he  persuaded  the  assailants  to 
withdraw,  and  the  Veronese,  in  gratitude,  proclaimed  him  podesta 
by  acclamation.  He  promptly  made  use  of  the  position  to  burn 
in  the  market-place  some  sixty  heretics  of  both  sexes,  belonging 
to  the  noblest  famihes  of  the  city.  Then  he  summoned  to  a  great 
assembly  in  a  plain  hard  by  all  the  confederate  cities  and  nobles. 
Obedient  to  his  call  there  came  the  Patriarch  of  Aquileia,  the 
Bishops  of  Mantua,  Brescia,  Bologna,  Modena,  Keggio,  Treviso, 
Yicenza,  Padua,  and  Ceneda,  Ezzelin  da  Komano,  the  Marquis  of 
Este,  who  was  Lord  of  Mantua,  the  Count  of  San  Bonifacio,  who 
ruled  Ferrara,  and  delegates  from  all  the  cities,  with  their  carro- 
chi.  The  multitude  was  diversely  estimated  at  from  forty  thou- 
sand to  five  hundred  thousand  souls,  who  were  wrought  by  his 
eloquence  to  the  utmost  enthusiasm  of  mutual  forgiveness.  After 
denouncing  as  rebels  and  enemies  of  the  Church  all  who  adhered 
to  Frederic  or  invited  him  to  Italy,  Giovanni  induced  his  auditors 
to  swear  to  accept  such  settlement  of  their  quarrels  as  he  should 


GIOVANNI    DA    VICENZA.  205 

dictate,  and  when   he  announced  the  terms  they  unanimously 
signed  the  treaty.* 

So  great  became  his  reputation  that  Gregory  IX.  was  seriously 
disturbed  at  a  report  that  Giovanni  contemplated  makino-  himself 
pope.  A  consistory  was  assembled  to  consider  the  advisability  of 
excommunicating  him,  and  that  step  would  have  been  taken  had 
not  the  Bishop  of  Modena  sworn  upon  a  missal  that  he  had  once 
seen  an  angel  descend  from  heaven  while  Giovanni  was  speaking, 
and  place  a  golden  cross  upon  his  brow.  A  confidential  mission 
was  sent  to  Bologna  to  investigate  his  career  there,  which  returned 
with  authentic  accounts  of  numberless  miracles  performed  by  him, 
among  them  no  less  than  ten  resuscitations  of  the  dead.  So  holy 
a  man  could  not  well  be  thrust  from  the  pale  of  the  Church,  and 
the  project  was  abandoned.f 

Meanwhile  he  had  visited  his  native  place,  Vicenza,  on  invita- 
tion of  the  bishop,  and  had  so  impressed  the  people  that  they  gave 
him  their  statutes  to  revise  at  his  pleasure,  and  proclaimed  him 
duke,  marquis,  and  count  of  the  city — titles  which  belonged  to  the 
bishop,  who  also  offered  to  make  over  the  episcopate  to  him.  As 
at  Verona,  he  used  his  power  to  burn  a  number  of  heretics.  Dur- 
ing his  absence  at  Verona,  Uguccione  Pileo,  an  enemy  of  the  Schia 
family,  induced  the  people  to  revolt,  when  Giovanni  hastened  back 
and  suppressed  the  rebellion,  putting  to  death,  with  torture,  a 
number  of  citizens,  who  are  charitably  supposed  to  have  been 
heretics.  Uguccione  brought  up  reinforcements  ;  a  fierce  battle 
was  fought  in  the  streets,  and  Giovanni  was  worsted  and  taken 
prisoner.  A  letter  of  condolence,  addressed  to  him  in  prison,  by 
Gregory,  under  date  of  September  22,  1233,  serves  to  fix  the  date 
of  this,  and  to  show  how  powerless  was  the  papacy  to  protect 
its  agents  in  the  fierce  dissensions  of  the  period.  Giovanni  was 
obliged  to  ransom  himself  and  return  to  Verona,  and  thence  to 
Bologna.  The  peace  which  he  had  effected  was  of  short  duration. 
The  chronic  wars  broke  out  afresh,  and  Giovanni,  at  the  instance 
of  Gregory,  came  again  to  pacify  them.  In  this  he  succeeded,  but 
no  sooner  was  his  back  turned   than  hostilities  were  renewed. 

*  RipoU  I.  48,  56-9.— Matt.  Paris,  ann.  1238,  p.  320.— Chron.  Veroneus.  ann. 
1233  (Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  Vni.  67).— Gerardi  Maurisii  Hist.  (lb.  pp.  37-9).— Barba- 
rano  de'  Mironi,  Hist.  Eccles.  di  Vicenza,  II.  79-84. 

t  Barbarano  de'  Mironi,  op.  cit.  II.  90  1. 


206  ITALY. 

Gregory  made  a  third  attempt,  through  the  Bishops  of  Keggio  and 
Treviso,  who  induced  the  warring  factions  to  lay  down  their  arms 
for  a  while ;  but  the  main  object,  of  presenting  a  united  front  and 
keeping  Frederic  out  of  Italy,  was  lost.  Ezzelin  and  a  number 
of  the  cities  urged  his  coming,  and  the  decisive  victory  of  Corte- 
nuova,  in  November,  1237,  dissolved  the  Lombard  League  which 
had  so  long  held  the  empire  in  check,  and  made  him  master  of 
Lombardy.* 

During  all  this  time  Gregory  had  been  untiring  in  his  efforts 
to  subdue  heresy  in  Lombardy,  undeterred  by  the  disheartening 
lack  of  result.  All  his  legates  to  that  province  were  duly  in- 
structed to  regard  this  as  one  of  their  chief  duties.  In  May,  1236, 
he  had  even  attempted  to  establish  there  a  rudimentary  Inquisi- 
tion, but,  in  the  existing  condition  of  the  land,  even  he  could 
hardly  have  expected  to  accomplish  anything.  Frederic  came 
with  professions  that  the  extirpation  of  heresy  was  one  of  the 
motives  impelling  him  to  the  enterprise ;  and  when  Gregory  re- 
proached him  with  suppressing  the  preaching  of  the  friars  and 
thus  favoring  heresy,  he  astutely  retorted,  with  a  reference  to 
Giovanni,  by  alluding  to  those  who,  under  pretext  of  making  war 
on  heresy,  were  busy  in  establishing  themselves  as  potentates,  and 
were  taking  castles  as  security  from  those  suspect  in  faith.  Greg- 
ory, in  reply,  could  only  disclaim  all  responsibility  for  the  acts  of 
the  adventurous  friar.  Yet  Gregory  himself,  when  it  suited  his 
Lombard  policy,  did  not  hesitate  to  relax  his  severity  against  the 
heretics,  and  it  became  a  popular  cry  in  Germany  that  he  had 
been  bribed  with  their  gold.f 

For  some  years  Giovanni  Schio  led  a  comparatively  quiet  ex- 
istence in  Bologna,  but  in  1247,  by  which  time  the  Inquisition  was 
fairly  taking  shape.  Innocent  I Y.  appointed  him  perpetual  inquisi- 
tor throughout  Lombardy,  arming  him  with  full  powers  and  re- 
leasing him  from  all  subjection  or  accountability  to  the  Dominican 
general  or  provincial.  In  the  existing  condition  of  the  north  of 
Italy  the  commission  was  virtually  inoperative,  and  its  only  inter- 


*  Ripoll  I.  60-1. — Barbarano  de'  Miroui  op.  cit.  II.  86,  91-2. 

+  Greg.  PP.  IX.  Bull.  Ille  humani  generis,  20  Maii,  1236  (Ripoll  I.  9.5,  gives 
this  in  1237,  probably  a  reissue).  —  Epistt.  Ssecul.  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  693,  700,  702, 
704.— Hist.  Diplom.  Frid.  II.  T.  IV.  P.  ii.  pp.  907-8.— Schmidt,  Cathares,  I.  161. 


SAN    PIERO    MARTIRE.  207 

est  lies  in  its  terms,  which  show  that  up  to  this  time  there  was  no 
organized  Inquisition  there.  We  hear  nothing  further  of  his  ac- 
tivity, even  after  the  death  of  Frederic,  in  1250,  until,  in  1256,  the 
long-delayed  crusade  was  undertaken  against  Ezzelin  da  Eomano. 
By  his  fiery  eloquence  he  raised  in  Bologna  a  considerable  force 
of  crusaders,  at  whose  head  he  marched  against  the  tyrant  of  the 
Trevisan,  but,  disgusted  with  the  quarrels  of  the  leaders,  he  re- 
turned to  Bologna  before  the  final  catastrophe,  and  he  is  supposed 
to  have  perished,  in  1265,  in  the  crusade  against  Manfred,  when 
there  was  a  contingent  of  ten  thousand  Bolognese  in  the  army  of 
Charles  of  Anjou.* 

Yet  the  most  noteworthy  in  all  respects  of  the  dauntless  zealots 
who  fought  the  seemingly  desperate  battle  against  heresy  was 
Piero  da  Verona,  better  known  as  St.  Peter  Martyr.  Bom  at 
Verona  in  1203  or  1206,  of  a  heretic  family,  his  legend  relates  that 
he  was  divinely  led  to  recognize  their  errors.  "When  a  schoolboy 
of  only  seven  years  of  age  his  uncle  chanced  to  ask  him  what  he 
learned,  and  he  repeated  the  orthodox  creed.  His  uncle  there- 
upon told  him  he  must  not  say  that  God  created  the  heaven  and 
the  earth,  for  he  was  not  the  creator  of  the  visible  universe ;  but 
the  child,  fiUed  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  overcame  his  elder  in  argu- 
ment, who  thereupon  urged  the  parents  to  remove  him  from 
school,  but  the  father,  who  hoped  to  see  him  become  a  leader  of 
the  sect,  allowed  him  to  complete  his  education.  His  orthodox 
zeal  grew  with  his  growth,  and  in  1221  he  entered  the  Dominican 
Order.  His  confessor  testified  that  he  never  committed  a  mortal 
sin,  and  the  bull  of  his  canonization  bears  emphatic  evidence  to 
his  humility,  his  meek  obedience,  his  sweet  benignity,  his  exhaust- 
less  compassion,  his  unfailing  patience,  his  wonderful  charity,  his 
passionate  supplications  to  God  for  martyrdom,  and  the  innumera- 
ble miracles  which  illustrated  his  life.f 

Before  the  Dominicans  were  armed  with  the  power  of  perse- 
cution Piero  earnestly  devoted  himself  to  the  original  function  of 
the  Order,  that  of  controverting  heresy,  and  preaching  against 
heretics.  In  this  the  success  of  the  young  apostle  was  marvel- 
lously aided   by  his  thaumaturgic  development.      At  Ravenna, 


*  RipoU  I.  174-5.— Barbarano  de'  Mironi,  op.  cit.  II.  94-6. 

t  Jac.  de  Voragine  Legenda  Aurea  s.  v. — Mag.  Bull.  Rom.  I.  94. 


208  ITALY. 

Mantua,  Yenice,  Milan,  and  other  places,  numerous  wonders  are 
related  of  his  performance.  Thus,  at  Cesena,  the  success  of  his 
efforts  at  conversion  irritated  the  heretics,  who,  on  one  occasion, 
interrupted  his  preaching  in  the  public  square  by  volleys  of  filth 
and  stones  discharged  from  a  house  near  by.  He  several  times 
mildly  entreated  them  to  desist,  but  in  vain,  when,  inspired  by 
divine  wrath,  he  launched  a  terrible  imprecation  against  them. 
Instantly  the  house  crumbled  in  ruin,  burying  the  sacrilegious 
wretches,  nor  could  it  be  rebuilt  until  long  afterwards.* 

When  the  Dominicans  were  charged  with  the  duty  of  persecu- 
tion his  earnest  zeal  naturally  caused  him  to  be  selected  as  one  of 
the  earliest  laborers.  In  1233  he  was  sent  to  Milan,  where,  thus 
far,  all  the  efforts  of  papal  missives  and  legates  had  proved  in- 
effectual to  rouse  the  authorities  and  the  citizens  to  undertake 
the  holy  work.  The  laws  which,  in  1228,  Cardinal  Goffredo  had 
inscribed  on  the  statute-book  had  remained  a  dead  letter.  All 
this  was  changed  when  Piero  da  Verona  made  his  influence  felt. 
Not  only  did  he  cause  Gregory's  legislation  of  1231  to  be  adopted 
in  the  municipal  law,  but  he  stimulated  the  podesta,  Oldrado  da 
Tresseno,  and  the  archbishop,  Enrico  da  Settala,  to  work  in  earn- 
est. A  number  of  heretics  were  burned,  who  were  probably  the 
first  victims  of  fanaticism  which  Milan  had  seen  since  the  time  of 
the  Cathari  of  Monf  orte.  So  strong  was  the  impression  made  by 
these  executions  that  they  earned  for  the  podesta  Oldrado  the 
honor  of  an  equestrian  portrait  in  bas-relief,  with  the  inscription, 
"  Qui  soliiiin  struxit,  Catharos  ut  debiiit  uxit^''  which  is  still  to  be 
seen  adorning  the  wall  of  the  Sala  del  ConsigUo,  now  the  Archi^ao 
pubblico.  It  fared  worse  with  the  archbishop,  who  was  rendered 
so  unpopular  that  he  was  banished,  for  which  the  magistracy  was 
duly  excommunicated ;  but  he,  too,  had  posthumous  reward,  for 
his  tomb  bore  the  legend  "  mstituto  inquisitore  jugulavit  hceresesP 
Piero  likewise  founded  in  Milan  a  company,  or  association,  for  the 
suppression  of  heresy,  which  was  taken  under  immediate  papal 
protection — the  model  of  that  which  ten  years  later  did  such 
bloody  work  in  Florence.  We  may  safely  assume  that  his  fiery 
activity  continued  unabated,  though  we  hear  nothing  of  him  until 
1242,  when  we  again  find  him  in  j\Iilan  so  vigorously  at  work  that 

•  Campana,  Storia  di  San  Piero-Martire,  Milano,  1741,  pp.  38-39, 


HERESY    IN    FLORENCE.  209 

he  is  said  to  have  caused  a  sedition  which  nearly  ruined  the 
city.* 

Two  years  later  we  meet  him  fighting  heresy  in  Florence. 
That  city,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  the  subject  of  the  earliest 
inquisitorial  experiments,  Fra  Giovanni  di  Salerno,  Prior  of  Santa 
Maria  Novella,  having  been  commissioned  to  prosecute  heretics 
in  1228,  and  being  succeeded  after  his  death,  in  1230,  by  Frk 
Aldobrandini  Cavalcante,  and  about  1241  by  Fra  Ruggieri  Cal- 
cagni.  The  first  two  of  these  accomphshed  little,  being,  in  fact, 
rather  preachers  than  inquisitors.  The  heretics  were  protected 
by  the  Ghibelline  faction  and  the  partisans  of  Frederic  II.,  and 
heresy,  far  from  decreasing,  spread  rapidly  in  spite  of  occasional 
burnings.  When  the  Catharan  Bishop  Paternon  fled,  his  posi- 
tion was  successively  held  by  three  others,  TorseUo,  Brunnetto, 
and  Giacopo  da  Montefiascone.  Many  of  the  most  powerful  fami- 
lies were  heretics  or  open  defenders  of  heresy — the  Baroni,  Pulci, 
Cipriani,  Cavalcanti,  Saraceni,  and  Malpresa.  The  Baroni  built 
a  stronghold  at  San  Gaggio,  beyond  the  waUs,  which  served  as  a 
refuge  for  the  Perfected,  and  there  were  plenty  of  houses  in  the 
town  where  they  could  hold  their  conventicles  in  safety.  The 
Cipriani  had  two  palaces,  one  at  Mugnone  and  the  other  in  Flor- 
ence, where  troops  of  Cathari  assembled  under  the  leadership  of 
a  heresiarch  named  Marchisiano,  and  there  were  great  schools  at 
Poggibonsi,  Plan  di  Cascia,  and  Ponte  a  Sieve.f 

The  whole  of  central  Italy,  in  fact,  was  almost  as  deeply  infected 
with  heresy  as  Lombardy,  and  little  had  as  yet  been  done  to  purify 
it.  That  as  late  as  1235  no  comprehensive  attempt  had  been  made 
to  establish  the  Inquisition  is  shown  by  a  papal  brief  addressed  in 
that  year  to  the  Dominicans  of  Yiterbo,  empowering  them,  in  all 
the  dioceses  of  Tuscany,  Viterbo,  Orta,  BaLneoreggio,  Castro,  So- 
ano,  A  merino,  and  Narni,  to  absolve  heretics  not  publicly  defamed 
for  heresy,  who  should  spontaneously  accuse  themselves,  provided 
the  bishops  assented  and  sufficient  bail  were  given ;  and  the  bish- 
ops were  ordered  to  co-operate.  Heretics  not  thus  voluntarily 
confessing  were  to  be  dealt  with  according  to  the  papal  statutes. 

*  Bern.  Corio,  Hist.  Milanese,  ann.  1233,  1242.  —  Verri,  Storia  di  Milano,  I. 
241-3.— Ripoll  I.  65.— Annal.  Mediolanens.  c.  xiv.  (Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  XVI.  651). 
— Sarpi,  Discorso  (Ed.  Helmstad.  1763,  IV.  21). 

t  Lami,  Autichita  Toscane,  pp.  497,  500. 
II.— 14 


210  ITALY. 

At  Yiterbo  dwelt  Giovanni  da  Benevento,  who  was  called  the 
pope  of  the  heretics,  but  it  was  not  until  Gregory  went  thither  in 
1237  and  undertook  the  task  of  purifying  the  place  himself  that 
any  efficient  action  was  taken  ;  he  condemned  Giovanni  and  many 
other  heretics,  and  ordered  the  palaces  of  some  of  the  noblest  f  am- 
ihes  of  the  city  to  be  torn  down,  as  having  afforded  refuge  to  here- 
tics. At  the  same  time  the  Bishop  of  Padua  was  urged  to  perse- 
vere in  the  good  work,  and  at  Parma  the  Knights  of  Jesus  Christ 
were  instituted  with  the  same  object  by  Jordan,  the  Dominican 
general.  All  this  indicates  the  commencement  of  systematic 
operations,  and  the  pressure  grew  stronger  year  by  year.  Un- 
der the  energetic  management  of  Ruggieri  Calcagni  the  Floren- 
tine Inquisition  rapidly  took  shape  and  executions  became  fre- 
quent, while  in  the  confessions  of  the  accused  allusions  are  made 
to  heretics  burned  elsewhere,  showing  that  persecution  was  be- 
coming active  wherever  political  conditions  rendered  it  possible. 
Thus  in  a  confession  of  1244  there  is  a  reference  to  two,  Maffeo 
and  Martello,  burned  not  long  before  at  Pisa.* 

In  Florence  Fra  Ruggieri's  vigor  was  reducing  the  heretics  to 
desperation.  Each  trial  revealed  fresh  names,  and  as  the  circle 
spread  the  prosecutions  became  more  numerous  and  terrible.  The 
Signoria  was  coerced  by  papal  letters  to  enforce  the  citations  of 
the  inquisitor,  and  as  the  prisoners  multiplied  and  their  depositions 
were  taken,  fully  a  third  of  the  citizens,  including  many  nobles, 
were  found  to  be  involved.  Excited  by  the  magnitude  of  the  de- 
velopments, Ruggieri  determined  to  strike  at  the  chiefs,  and,  invok- 
ing the  aid  of  the  Priors  of  the  Arts,  he  seized  a  number  of  them 
and  condemned  to  the  stake  those  who  proved  contumacious.  The 
time  had  evidently  come  when  they  must  choose  between  open 
resistance  and  destruction.  The  Baroni  assembled  their  followers, 
broke  open  the  jails,  and  carried  off  the  prisoners,  who  were  dis- 
tributed through  various  strongholds  in  the  Florentine  territory, 
where  they  continued  to  preach  and  spread  their  doctrines. 

Matters  were  rapidly  approaching  a  crisis.  On  the  one  hand 
it  was  impossible  for  so  large  a  body  as  the  heretics  to  permit 
themselves  to  be  slaughtered  in  detail  with  impunity,  to  say  noth- 


*  Ripoll  I.  79-80.— Raynald.  ann.  1235,  No.  15.— Vit.  Gregor.  PP.  IX.  (Mu- 
ratori,  S.  R.  I.  III.  581).— Lami  op.  cit.  pp.  554,  557. 


PIER  MARTIRE    AT    FLORENCE.  211 

ing  of  the  spoliation  and  gratification  of  private  feuds  which  could 
not  fail  to  involve  the  innocent  with  tlie  guilty  in  a  persecution 
of  such  extent  so  recklessly  pursued.     On  the  other  hand,  the 
persecutors  were  maddened  with  excitement  and  with  the  pros- 
pects of  at  last  triumphing  over  the  adversaries  who  had  so  long 
defied  them.     Innocent  IV.  wrote  pressingly  to  the  Signoria  com- 
manding energetic  support  for  the  inquisitor,  and  he  summoned 
from  Lombardy  Piero  da  Verona  to  lend  his  aid  in  the  approach- 
ing struggle.    Towards  the  end  of  1244  Piero  hastened  to  the  con- 
flict, and  his  eloquence  drew  such  crowds  that  the  Piazza  di  Santa 
Maria  Novella  had  to  be  enlarged  to  accommodate  the  multitude. 
He  utilized  the  enthusiasm  by  enrolling  the  orthodox  nobles  in 
a  guard  to  protect  the  Dominicans,  and  formed  a  military  order 
under  the  name  of  the  Societa  de'  Capitani  cU  Santa  Maria,  uni- 
formed in  a  white  doublet  with  a  red  cross,  and  these  led  the 
organization  known  as  the  Compagnia  della  Fede,  sworn  to  defend 
the  Inquisition  at  all  hazards,  under  privileges  granted  by  the 
Holy  See.     Thus  encouraged  and  supported,  Ruggieri  pushed  for- 
ward the  trials,  and  numbers  of  victims  were  burned.     This  was 
a  challenge  which  the  heretics  could  only  decline  under  pain  of 
annihilation.     They   likewise   organized  under  the   lead   of   the 
Baroni,  and  it  was  not  difiicult  to  persuade  the  podesta,  Ser  Pace 
di  Pesannola  of  Bergamo,  recently  appointed  by  Frederic  II.,  that 
the  interest  of  his  master  required  him  to  protect  them.    Thus  the 
perennial  quarrel  between  the  Church  and  the  empire  filled  the 
streets  of  Florence  with  bloodshed  under  the  banners  of  ortho- 
doxy and  heterodoxy. 

Ruggieri  provoked  the  conflict  without  flinching.  He  cited  the 
Baroni  before  him,  and  when  they  contemptuously  refused  to  ap- 
pear he  procured  a  special  mandate  from  Innocent  IV.  This  they 
obeyed  with  the  utmost  docility,  about  August  1,  1245,  swearing 
to  stand  to  the  mandates  of  the  Church,  and  depositing  one  thou- 
sand fire  as  security ;  but  when  they  understood  that  he  was  about 
to  render  sentence  against  them,  they  appealed  to  the  podesta. 
Ser  Pace  thereupon  sent  his  officers,  August  12,  to  Euggieri,  order- 
ing him  to  annul  the  proceedings  as  contrary  to  the  mandate  of 
the  emperor,  to  return  the  money  taken  as  bail,  and,  in  case  of 
contumacy,  to  appear  the  next  day  before  the  ])(i<lesta  undei-  \)en- 
alty  of  a  thousand  marks.     Kuggieri's  only  notice  of  this  was  a 


312  ITALY. 

summons  the  next  day  to  Ser  Pace  to  appear  before  the  Inquisi- 
tion as  suspect  of  heresy  and  fautorship,  under  pain  of  forfeiture 
of  office.  The  fervid  rhetoric  of  Fra  Piero  poured  oil  upon  the 
flames,  and  the  city  found  itself  divided  into  two  factions,  not  un- 
equally matched  and  eager  to  fly  at  each  other.  Taking  advan- 
tage of  the  assembling  of  the  faithful  in  the  churches  on  a  feast- 
day,  the  podesta  sounded  the  tocsin,  and  many  unarmed  Catholics 
are  said  to  have  been  slaughtered  before  the  altars.  Then  on  St. 
Bartholomew's  day  (August  24:)  Ruggieri  and  Bishop  Ardingho,  in 
the  Piazza  di  S.  Maria  Novella,  pubhcly  read  a  sentence  condemn- 
ing the  Baroni,  confiscating  their  possessions,  and  ordering  their 
castles  and  palaces  to  be  destroyed,  which  naturally  led  to  a  bloody 
collision  between  the  factions.  Piero  then  placed  himself  at  the 
head  of  the  Compagnia  della  Fede,  carrying  a  standard  hke  the 
other  captains,  among  whom  the  de'  Rossi  were  the  most  conspicu- 
ous. Under  his  leadership  two  murderous  battles  were  fought, 
one  at  the  Croce  al  Trebbio  and  the  other  in  the  Piazza  di  S.  Fe- 
licita,  in  both  of  which  the  heretics  were  utterly  routed.  Monu- 
ments still  mark  the  scene  of  these  victories ;  and,  until  recent 
times,  the  banner  which  San  Piero  gave  to  the  de'  Rossi  was  still 
carried  by  the  Compagnia  di  San  Piero  Martire  on  the  celebration 
of  his  birthday,  April  29,  while  the  one  which  he  bore  himself  is 
preserved  among  the  relics  of  Santa  Maria  Novella  and  is  publicly 
displayed  on  his  feast-day. 

Thus  was  destroyed  in  Florence  the  power  of  the  heretics  and 
of  the  Ghibellines.  Ruggieri,  for  his  steadfast  courage,  was  re- 
warded, before  the  close  of  1245,  with  the  bishopric  of  Castro,  and 
was  succeeded  as  inquisitor  by  San  Piero  himself,  whose  indefati- 
gable zeal  allowed  the  heretics  no  rest.  Many  of  them,  recognizing 
the  futility  of  further  resistance,  abandoned  their  errors ;  others 
fled,  and  when  Piero  left  Florence  he  could  boast  that  heresy  was 
conquered  and  the  Inquisition  established  on  an  impregnable  basis ; 
though  Rainerio's  estimate  of  the  Florentine  Cathari,  some  years 
later,  shows  that  it  still  had  an  ample  harvest  to  reward  its  labors.* 

*  Lami,  oy).  cit.  pp.  560-85. — Lami's  account  of  these  troubles,  based  upon 
original  sources,  is  so  complete  that  I  have  followed  it  without  reference  to  other 
authorities.  Most  of  the  documents  are  still  in  the  Archives  of  Florence  (ArchiT. 
Diplom.,  Prov.  S.  Maria  Novella,  ann.  1245). 

The  Compagnia  della  Fede,  known  subsequently  as  del  Bigallo,  was  changed 


DEATH    OF    FREDERIC    II.  213 

While  Ruggieri,  in  the  summer  of  1245,  was  precipitating  the 
conflict  in  Florence,  Innocent  lY.,  in  the  Council  of  Lyons,  was 
passing  sentence  of  dethronement  on  Frederic  II.  and  trying  to 
find  some  aspirant  hardy  enough  to  accept  the  imperial  crown. 
Frederic  laughed  the  sentence  to  scorn  and  easily  disposed  of  his 
would-be  competitors,  but  he  was  obliged  to  struggle  hard  to  main- 
tain his  Italian  possessions,  and  his  death,  December  13,  1250, 
relieved  the  papacy  from  the  most  formidable  antagonist  which 
its  ambitious  designs  had  ever  encountered.  Skilled  equally  in 
the  arts  of  war  and  peace,  untiring  in  activity,  dismayed  by  no 
reverses,  intellectually  far  in  advance  of  his  age,  and  encumbered 
with  few  scruples,  Frederic's  brilMant  abilities  and  indomitable 
courage  had  been  the  one  obstacle  in  the  papal  path  towards  domi- 
nation over  Italy  and  the  foundation  on  that  basis  of  a  universal 
theocratic  monarchy.  His  son,  Conrad  lY.,  a  youth  of  twenty- 
one,  was  scarce  to  be  dreaded  in  comparison,  though  Innocent 
cautiously  waited  for  a  while  in  Lyons  before  venturing  into  Italy. 
After  reaching  Genoa,  June  8,  1251,  he  addressed  to  Piero  da 
Yerona  and  Yiviano  da  Bergamo  a  brief  which  shows  that  the 
intervening  six  months  had  not  sufficed  to  dull  the  sense  of  rejoic- 
ing at  the  death  of  his  great  opponent,  and  that  no  more  time 
was  to  be  lost  in  taking  full  advantage  of  the  opportunity.  A 
dithyrambic  burst  of  exultation  is  followed  by  the  declaration 
that  thanks  to  God  for  this  inestimable  mercy  are  to  be  rendered 
not  so  much  in  words  as  in  deeds,  and  of  these  the  most  accept- 
able is  the  purification  of  the  faith.  Frederic's  favor  towards  here- 
tics had  long  impeded  the  operations  of  the  Inquisition  throughout 
Italy,  and  now  that  he  is  removed  it  is  to  be  put  into  action  every- 
where with  all  possible  vigor.  Inquisitors  are  to  be  sent  into  all 
parts  of  Lombardy ;  Piero  and  Yiviano  are  ordered  to  proceed 
forthwith  to  Cremona,  armed  with  all  necessary  powers ;  rulers 
who  do  not  zealously  assist  them  will  be  coerced  with  the  s])ir- 
itual  sword,  and,  if  this  proves  insufficient,  Christendom  will  be 
aroused  to  destroy  them  in  a  crusade.  This  bull  was  followed  by 
a  rapid  succession  of  others  addressed  to  the  Dominican  pr<jvln- 
cials  and  to  potentates,  ordering  strenuous  co-operation,  and  the 

in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  by  Sant'  Antonino,  Prior  of  San  Marco, 
into  a  charitable  association  for  the  care  ol"  orphans  (Villari,  Storia  di  Girol. 
Savonarola,  Firenze,  1887,  I.  37). 


214  ITALY. 

inscription  in  all  local  statutes  of  the  constitutions  of  the  dead 
emperor  and  of  the  popes — bulls  issued  in  such  haste  that,  June 
13,  1252,  the  pope  was  obliged  to  explain  that  the  blunders  and 
omissions  arising  from  the  hurried  work  of  the  scribes  are  not  to 
invalidate  them.  The  whole  was  crowned,  May  15,  1252,  by  the 
issue  of  the  buU  Ad  extirpanda^  of  which  I  have  given  an  abstract 
in  a  former  chapter.  This  sought  to  render  the  civil  power  com- 
pletely subservient  to  the  Inquisition,  and  prescribed  the  extirpa- 
tion of  heresy  as  the  chief  duty  of  the  State.* 

Innocent's  mandate  probably  found  Piero  at  the  convent  of 
San  Giovanni  in  Canali  at  Piacenza,  of  which  he  was  prior  in  1250, 
and  where  his  austerities  so  impressed  his  brethren  that  they 
begged  his  friend,  Matteo  da  Correggio,  pretor  of  the  city,  to  in- 
duce him  to  moderate  them,  lest  the  flesh  which  he  so  persistently 
macerated  should  give  way  under  the  ardent  spirit  within.  If,  in 
fact,  we  are  to  believe  the  statement  that  he  habitually  never 
broke  his  fast  before  sunset,  and  that  he  passed  most  of  the  night 
in  prayer,  restricting  his  sleep  to  the  least  that  was  compatible 
with  life,  his  career  becomes  easily  intelligible.  Deficiency  of 
nourishment,  replaced  by  unceasing  and  unnatural  nervous  exalta- 
tion, must  have  rendered  him  virtually  an  irresponsible  being. f 

We  have  no  details  of  what  he  accomplished  as  inquisitor  at 
Cremona,  or  at  Milan  to  which  he  was  afterwards  transferred.  It 
is  presumable,  however,  that  his  relentless  activity  fully  responded 
to  the  expectations  of  those  who  had  selected  him  as  the  fittest 
instrument  to  take  advantage,  in  the  headquarters  of  heresy,  of 
the  unexpected  opportunity  to  visit  the  now  defenceless  heretics 
with  the  wrath  of  God.  Within  nine  months  after  he  had  been 
summoned  to  action  he  had  already  become  such  an  object  of  ter- 
ror that  in  despair  a  plot  was  laid  for  his  assassination.  The 
matter  was  intrusted  to  Stefano  Confaloniero,  a  noble  of  Aliate, 
and  the  hire  of  the  assassins,  twenty-five  lire,  was  furnished  by 
Guidotto  SacheUa.  The  week  before  Easter  (March  23-30),  1252, 
Stefano  proposed  the  murder  to  Manfredo  Clitoro  of  Giussano, 
who  agreed  to  do  it,  and  associated  with  him  Carino  da  Balsamo. 
At  the  same  time  Giacopo  della  Chiusa  undertook  to  go  to  Pavia 

*  Ripoll  I.  192-3,   199,  205,  208-  14,  231.— Berger,  Registres  d'  Innoc.  IV, 
No.  5065,  5345.— Mag.  Bull.  Rom.  I.  91. 

t  Campana,  Vita  di  Sau  Piero-Martire,  pp.  100-1. 


MURDER    OP    SAN    PIERO.  215 

to  slay  Rainerio  Saccone,  and  made  the  journey,  but  failed  to  ac- 
complish his  mission.  The  other  conspirators  were  more  success- 
ful. Fra  Piero  at  that  time  was  Prior  of  Como,  and  went  thither 
to  pass  his  Easter.  He  was  obliged  to  return  to  Milan  on  Low 
Sunday,  April  7,  as  on  that  day  expired  the  term  of  fifteen  days 
which  he  had  assigned  to  a  contumacious  heretic.  During  Easter 
week  Stefano,  with  Manfredo  and  Carino,  went  to  Como  and 
awaited  Piero's  departure.  It  shows  the  fearlessness  and  the 
austerity  of  the  man  that  he  set  out  on  foot,  April  7,  though 
weakened  with  a  quartain  fever,  and  accompanied  only  by  a  single 
friar,  Domenico.  Manfredo  and  Carino  followed  them  as  far  as 
Barlassina,  and  set  upon  them  in  a  lonely  spot.  Carino  acted  as 
executioner,  laying  open  Piero's  head  with  a  single  blow,  mortal- 
ly wounding  Domenico,  and  then,  finding  that  Piero  still  breathed, 
plunging  a  dagger  in  his  breast.  Some  passing  travellers  carried 
the  body  of  the  martyr  to  the  convent  of  San  Sempliciano,  while 
Domenico  was  conveyed  to  Meda,  where  he  died  five  days  after- 
wards. As  for  the  conspirators,  I  have  already  alluded  to  the 
strange  delay  which  postponed  for  forty-three  years  the  final  sen- 
tence of  Stefano  Confaloniero,  and  to  the  repentance  and  beatifica- 
tion of  Carino,  who  became  St.  Acerinus.  Daniele  da  Giussano, 
another  of  the  confederates,  also  repented  and  entered  the  Domin- 
ican Order.  Giacopo  deUa  Chiusa  seems  to  have  escaped,  and 
Manfredo  and  a  certain  Tommaso  were  captured  and  confessed. 
Manfredo  admitted  that  he  had  been  concerned  in  the  murder  of 
two  other  inquisitors,  Era  Pier  di  Bracciano  and  Era  Catalano,  both 
Eranciscans,  at  Ombraida  in  Lombardy.  He  was  simply  ordered 
to  present  himself  to  the  pope  for  judgment,  but  in  place  of  obey- 
ing he  very  naturally  fled,  and  there  is  no  record  of  his  subsequent 
fate.  Ko  one  seems  to  have  been  put  to  death,  and  common  re- 
port asserted  that  the  assassins  found  a  safe  refuge  among  the 
Waldenses  of  the  Alpine  valleys,  which  is  not  improbable* 


•  Bern.  Corio,  Hist.  Milanese,  ann.  1252.— Gualvanen  Flammac.  286  (Muratori, 
S.  R.  I.  XI.  684).— Ripoll  I.  224,  244,  389.— Campana,  Vita  di  San  Piero-Martire, 
pp.  118-20,  125,  128-9,  132-33.— Annal.  Mediolanens.  c.  24  (Muratori,  XVI.  656). 
— Tamburini,  Storia  dell'  Inquisizione,  I.  492-502.— Wadding  Annal.  ann.  1284, 
No.  3. — Rodulphii  Hist.  Seraph.  Relig.  Lib.  i.  fol.  126.— Raj'nald.  Annal.  ann. 
1403,  No.  24. 

There  is  a  Daniele  da  Giussano  who  appears  as  inquisitor  in  Lombardy  in 


210  ITALY. 

In  fact,  the  Church  made  much  shrewder  use  of  the  martyr- 
dom than  the  exaction  of  vulgar  vengeance.  Its  whole  machinery 
was  set  to  work  at  once  to  impress  the  populations  with  the  sanc- 
tity of  the  martyr.  Miracles  multiplied  around  him.  "When  the 
General  Chapter  of  the  Order  assembled  at  Bologna  in  May,  In- 
nocent wrote  to  them  in  terms  of  the  most  extravagant  hyperbole 
respecting  him,  and  urged  them  to  fresh  exertions  in  the  cause  of 
Christ.  By  August  31,  he  ordered  the  commencement  of  proceed- 
ings of  canonization,  and  before  a  year  had  elapsed,  March  25, 
1253,  the  buU  of  canonization  was  issued — I  believe  the  most 
speedy  creation  of  a  saint  on  record.  It  would  be  difficult  to  ex- 
aggerate the  cult  which  developed  itself  around  the  martyr.  Be- 
fore the  century  was  out,  Giacopo  di  Yoragine  compared  his  mar- 
tyrdom with  that  of  Christ,  establishing  many  similitudes  between 
them,  and  he  assures  us  that  the  disappearance  of  heresy  in  the 
Milanese  was  owing  to  the  merits  of  the  saint — indeed,  already,  in 
the  bull  of  canonization  it  is  asserted  that  many  heretics  had  been 
converted  by  his  death  and  miracles.  It  is  true  that  when,  in 
1291,  Fra  Tommaso  d'Aversa,  a  Dominican  of  Waples,  in  a  sermon 
on  the  feast  of  San  Fiero  dared  to  compare  his  wounds  with  the 
stigmata  of  St.  Francis — saying  that  the  former  were  the  signs  of 
the  living  God  and  not  of  the  dead,  while  the  latter  were  those  of 
the  dead  God  and  not  of  the  living— it  is  true  that  the  expression 
was  thought  to  savor  of  blasphemy.  The  existing  pope,  Mcholas 
IV.,  chanced  to  be  a  Franciscan,  so  Tommaso  was  summoned  before 
him,  forced  to  confess,  and  was  sent  back  to  his  provincial  with 
orders  to  subject  him  to  a  punishment  that  would  prevent  a  repe- 
tition of  the  sacrilege.  Yet  successive  popes  encouraged  the  cult 
of  San  Piero  until  Sixtus  Y.,  in  1586,  designated  him  as  the  second 
head  of  the  Inquisition  after  St.  Dominic,  and  as  its  first  martyr, 
and  in  1588  granted  plenary  indulgence  to  all  who  should  visit 
for  devotion  the  Dominican  churches  on  the  days  of  St.  Dominic, 
Peter  Martyr,  and  Catharine  of  Siena.  In  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury an  enthusiastic  Spaniard  declared  that  he  was  crowned  with 
three  crowns,  "  como  Ejnperador  de  Martyres.''^  In  1373,  Gregory 
XL  granted  permission  to  erect  a  small  oratory  on  the  spot  of 


1279  (Ripoll  I.  567),  and  who  may  very  probably  be  the  same  as  the  accomplice 
in  the  murder. 


THE    CROCESEGNATI.  217 

the  murder,  which  grew  to  be  a  magnificent  church  witli  a  splen- 
did convent,  through  the  offerings  of  the  innumerable  pilgrims 
who  flocked  thither.  The  authenticity  of  the  martyr's  sanctity 
was  proved  when,  in  1840,  eighty-seven  years  after  death,  the  body 
was  translated  to  a  tomb  of  marvellous  workmanship,  and  was 
found  in  a  perfect  state  of  preservation ;  and  when  the  sepulchre 
was  opened  in  1736  it  was  still  found  uncorrupted,  with  wounds 
corresponding  exactly  to  those  described  in  the  annals.* 

The  enthusiasm  excited  by  the  career  of  San  Piero  was  turned 
to  practical  account  by  the  organization  in  most  of  the  Italian 
cities  of  Orocesegnati,  composed  of  the  principal  cavaliers,  who 
swore  to  defend  and  assist  the  inquisitors  at  peril  of  their  lives, 
and  to  devote  person  and  property  to  the  extermination  of  here- 
tics, for  which  service  they  received  plenary  remission  of  all  their 
sins.  These  associations  were  wont  to  assemble  on  the  feast  of 
San  Piero  in  the  Dominican  churches,  which  were  the  seats  of  the 
Inquisition,  and  hold  aloft  their  drawn  swords  during  the  reading 
of  the  Gospel,  in  testimony  of  their  readiness  to  crush  heresy  with 
force.  They  continued  to  exist  until  the  last  century,  and  Fra 
Pier-Tommaso  Campana,  who  was  inquisitor  at  Crema,  relates  with 
pride  how,  in  1738,  he  presided  over  such  a  ceremony  in  Milan. 
The  Crocesegnati,  moreover,  furnished  material  support  to  the  in- 

•  Ripoll  I.  213.— Campana,  op.  cit.  126,  149,  151,  257,  259,  262-3.— Jac.  de 
Vorag.  Legenda  Aurea  s.  v. — Mag.  Bull.  Roman.  I.  94. — Wadding  Annal.  ann. 
1291,  No.  24. — Juan  de  Mata,  Santoral  de  los  dos  Santos,  Barcelona,  1637,  fol. 
28.— Gualvaneo  Flamma,  Opusc.  (Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  XII.  1035). 

Fra  Tommaso's  disgrace  was  not  perpetual.  We  shall  meet  him  hereafter  as 
inquisitor,  alternately  protecting  and  persecuting  the  Spiritual  Franciscans.  If 
the  accounts  of  the  latter  be  true,  his  death  in  1306  was  a  visitation  of  God  for 
the  frightful  cruelties  inflicted  upon  them  (Hist.  Tribulationum,  aj).  Archiv  fiir 
Litteratur-  und  Kirchengeschichte,  1886,  p.  326). 

The  question  of  the  Stigmata  was  always  a  burning  one  between  the  two  Or- 
ders. The  Dominicans  at  first  refused  to  accept  the  miracle  until  forced  to  sub- 
mit by  energetic  papal  measures  (Chron.  Glassberger  ann.  1237 — Analecta  Fran- 
ciscanall.  58,  Quaracchi,  1887),  and  when  at  length  they  claimed  the  same  honor 
for  St.  Catharine  of  Siena  the  Franciscans  were  equally  incredulous.  In  1473,  at 
Trapani,  the  two  Orders  preached  against  each  other  on  this  subject  with  so 
much  violence  as  to  raise  great  disorders  between  their  respective  partisans 
among  the  laity,  until  the  Viceroy  of  Sicily  was  obliged  to  interfere  (La  Mantia, 
L'Inquisizione  in  Sicilia,  Torino,  1880,  p.  17) ;  and,  as  alreiidy  iiu-ntioned,  Sixtus 
IV.,  in  1475,  prohibited  the  ascription  of  the  Stigmata  to  St.  Catharine. 


218  ITALY. 

quisitors,  sup})]yiii(^-  them  when  necessary  with  both  men  and 
money  for  the  performance  of  their  functions.  In  fact,  they  were 
subject  to  excommunication  if  they  refused  to  give  money  when 
called  upon  by  the  inquisitor.  It  can  readily  be  conceived  how 
greatly  the  effectiveness  of  the  Inquisition  was  increased  by  such 
an  organization.* 

If  the  heretics  had  hoped  to  strike  their  persecutors  with 
terror  they  were  short-sighted.  The  fanaticism  of  the  Order  of 
Dominic  furnished  an  unfailing  supply  of  men  eager  for  the  crown 
of  martyrdom  and  unsparing  in  their  efforts  to  earn  it.  Hardly 
were  the  splendid  obsequies  of  San  Piero  completed  when  his  place 
was  occupied  by  Guido  da  Sesto  and  Kainerio  Saccone  da  Vicenza. 
The  latter  had  been  high  in  the  Catharan  Church,  when,  divinely 
illuminated  as  to  his  errors,  he  was  converted  and  expiated  his 
past  Ufe  by  entering  the  strict  Dominican  Order.  It  was  possibly 
in  his  favor  that  in  1246  Innocent  IV.  authorized  the  Dominican 
prior  at  Milan  to  admit  repentant  heretics  into  the  Order  without 
requiring  the  year's  novitiate  that  was  imposed  on  CathoUcs. 
Thoroughly  acquainted  with  all  the  secrets  of  heresy,  he  could 
render  invaluable  aid  in  persecuting  his  old  associates,  whom  he 
pursued  with  all  the  ruthless  bigotry  of  an  apostate.  He  was 
speedily  made  an  inquisitor,  and  earned  an  enviable  reputation 
among  the  faithful  by  his  vigor  and  success  in  exterminating  her- 
esy. The  fact  that,  as  we  have  seen,  he  was  singled  out  with 
San  Piero  by  the  conspirators  to  be  slain  shows  how  thoroughly 
he  had  earned  the  hate  of  the  persecuted.  We  know  nothing  of 
the  details  of  the  attempt  upon  his  life  save  that  Giacopo  della 
Chiusa  returned  from  Pavia  with  his  errand  unaccomphshed. 
Kainerio  was  at  once  transferred  to  Milan  as  the  man  best  fitted 
to  replace  the  martyr,  and  he  justified  the  selection  by  the  un- 
bending firmness  with  which  he  vindicated  the  authority  of  his 
office.  It  was  stiU  a  novelty  in  Lombardy,  and  a  man  of  his  keen 
intelhgence,  strength  of  purpose,  and  self-devotion  was  required  to 
organize  it  and  estabhsh  it  among  a  recalcitrant  population,  f 

*  Ripoll  Vm.  113.— Chron.  Parmens.  ann.  1286  (Muratori.  S.  R.  I.  IX.  810).— 
Campana,  op.  cit.  p.  63. — Bernard!  Comens.  Lucerna  Inquis.  s.  vv.  Bona  Jusreticar. 
No.  6,  Crricesignati,  Indulgentia. 

t  Ripoll  I.  144,  168.— Campi,  Dell'  Hist.  Eccles.  di  Piacenza,  P.  n.  pp. 
208-9. 


RAINERIO    SACCONE.  219 

Heretics,  in  fact,  were  more  numerous  than  ever  in  Lombardy, 
for  the  active  work  carried  on  in  Languedoc  by  Bernard  de  Caux 
and  his  colleagues  had  caused  a  wholesale  emigration.  Until  the 
death  of  Frederic,  Lombardy  was  regarded  as  a  secure  haven ; 
colonies  established  themselves  there,  and  even  after  the  Lombard 
Inquisition  was  thoroughly  organized  the  persecuted  wretches  con- 
tinued for  half  a  century  to  seek  refuge  there,  nor  do  we  often 
hear  of  their  being  detected.*  All  of  Rainerio's  resolution  and 
energy  were  required  for  the  work  before  him.  In  the  March  of 
Treviso,  Ezzelin  da  Romano,  whose  influence  extended  far  to  the 
west,  continued  openly  to  protect  heresy,  and  even  in  Lombardy 
the  hopes  excited  by  Frederic's  death  threatened  to  prove  falla- 
cious. In  1253,  when  Conrad  IV.  passed  through  Treviso  to  re- 
cover possession  of  his  Sicilian  kingdom,  he  appointed  as  his  Lom- 
bard vicar -general  Uberto  Pallavicino,  who  soon  became  as  ob- 
noxious to  the  Church  as  Ezzehn  himself ;  and,  though  Conrad 
died  in  1254,  and  Innocent  TV.  seized  Naples  as  a  forfeited  fief  of 
the  Church,  PaUavicino's  power  continued  to  increase,  and  he  soon 
established  relations  with  Manfred,  Frederic's  illegitimate  son,  who 
wrested  Naples  from  the  papacy  and  became  the  chief  of  the  Ghi- 
belline  faction.  Even  more  threatening  was  the  revulsion  of  feel- 
ing in  Milan  itself,  when  its  ardent  Guelfism  was  changed  to  in- 
difference by  Innocent's  indiscreet  assertion  of  certain  ecclesias- 
tical immunities  which  touched  the  pride  of  the  citizens.  The 
heads  of  the  hydra  might  well  seem  indestructible. 

One  of  Rainerio's  first  enterprises,  in  1253,  was  summoning  Egi- 
dio.  Count  of  Cortenuova,  before  his  tribunal,  as  a  fautor  and  de- 
fender of  heresy.  The  castle  of  Cortenuova,  near  Bergamo,  had 
been  razed  as  a  nest  of  heretics,  and  its  reconstruction  prohibited, 
but  the  count  had  seized  the  castle  of  Mongano,  which  was  claimed 
by  the  Bishop  of  Cremona,  and  had  converted  it  into  a  den  of 
heretics,  who  enjoyed  immunity  under  his  protection.  He  dis- 
dained to  obey  the  citation  and  was  duly  excommunicated.  He 
paid  no  attention  to  this,  and  on  March  23, 1254,  Innocent  TV.  or- 
dered the  authorities  of  Milan,  under  pain  of  ecclesiastical  cen- 
sures, to  take  the  castle  by  force  and  deUver  its  inmates  to  the  in- 
quisitors for  trial.     The  count,  however,  was  in  close  alliance  with 


*  Molinier,  Thesis  de  Fratre  Guillelmo  Pelisso,  Anicii,  1880,  pp.  lix.-lx. 


220  ITALY. 

Pallavicino,  "  that  enemy  of  God  and  the  Church,"  and  the  Mi- 
lanese appear  to  have  had  no  appetite  for  the  enterprise  at  the 
time.  Mongano  continued  to  be  a  place  of  refuge  for  the  perse- 
cuted until  1269,  when  the  Milanese  were  at  last  stimulated  to 
undertake  the  siege,  and  on  capturing  it  handed  it  over  to  the 
Dominicans.* 

Better  success  awaited  Kainerio's  efforts  with  Eoberto  Patta 
da  Giussano,  a  Milanese  noble  who  for  twenty  years  had  been  one 
of  the  most  conspicuous  defenders  of  heresy  in  Lombardy.  At 
his  castle  of  Gatta  he  publicly  maintained  heretic  bishops,  allow- 
ing them  to  build  houses,  and  establish  schools  whence  they  spread 
their  pernicious  doctrines  through  the  land.  They  had  also  there 
a  cemetery  where,  among  others,  were  buried  their  bishops,  Kazario 
and  Desiderio.  The  place  was  notorious,  and  it  is  related  of  San 
Piero  -  Martire,  as  an  instance  of  his  prophetic  gifts,  that  once 
when  passing  it  he  had  foretold  its  destruction  and  the  exhuma- 
tion of  the  heretic  bones.  Roberto  had  been  cited  by  the  arch- 
bishop and  had  abjured  heresy,  but  no  effective  measures  had  been 
ventured  upon  to  coerce  him  from  his  evil  ways,  and  the  heretics 
of  Gatta  had  continued  to  enjoy  his  protection.  It  was  other- 
wise when,  in  1254,  Rainerio  and  Guido  summoned  him  again. 
On  his  failing  to  appear  they  summaril}^  condemned  him  as  a 
heretic,  declared  his  property  confiscated  and  his  descendants  sub- 
ject to  the  usual  disabiUties.  Roberto  saw  that  the  new  officials 
were  not  to  be  trifled  with.  The  prospects  of  the  Ghibellines  at 
the  moment  were  apparently  hopeless.  He  hastened  to  make  his 
peace,  binding  himself  to  submit  to  any  terms  which  the  pope 
might  dictate ;  and  Innocent  doubtless  deemed  himself  merciful 
when,  August  19, 1254,  he  ordered  the  castle  of  Gatta  and  all  the 
heretic  houses  to  be  destroyed  by  fire,  the  bones  in  the  cemetery 
to  be  dug  up  and  burned,  and  the  count  to  perform  such  salutary 
penance  as  Rainerio  might  prescribe,  f 

The  papal  power  was  now  at  its  height.  Conrad  TV.  had  died 
May  20,  1254,  not  without  suspicion  of  poison ;  Innocent  IV.  had 
seized  his  Sicihan  kingdoms,  and  for  a  brief  space,  until  Manfred's 
romantic  adventures  and  victory  of  Foggia,  he  might  well  imagine 


*  Ripoll  I.  238,  243-3;  VII.  31.— Bern.  Corio,  Hist.  Milanese,  ann.  1269. 
t  Ripoll  I.  254. — Campana,  op.  cit.  p.  114. 


EXTENSION    OF    THE    INQUISITION.  221 

himself  on  the  eve  of  becoming  the  undisputed  temporal  as  well 
as  spiritual  head  of  Italy.  Every  effort  was  made  to  perfect  the 
Inquisition  and  to  render  it  efficient  both  as  a  political  instrument 
and  as  a  means  of  bringing  about  the  long-desired  uniformity  of 
belief.  On  March  8  Innocent  had  taken  an  important  step  in  its 
organization  by  ordering  the  Franciscan  Minister  of  Rome  to  ap- 
point friars  of  his  Order  as  inquisitors  in  all  the  provinces  south 
of  Lombardy.  On  May  20  he  reissued  his  bull  Ad  extirpanda ; 
on  the  22d  he  sent  the  constitutions  of  Frederic  II.  to  all  the  Italian 
rulers,  with  orders  to  incorporate  them  in  the  local  statutes,  and 
informed  them  that  the  Mendicants  were  instructed  to  coerce 
them  in  case  of  disobedience.  On  the  29th  he  proceeded  to  re- 
organize the  Lombard  Inquisition  by  instructing  the  provincial 
to  appoint  four  inquisitors  whose  power  should  extend  from  Bo- 
logna and  Ferrara  to  Genoa.  Under  this  impulsion  and  the  rest- 
less energy  of  Rainerio  no  time  was  lost  in  extending  the  institu- 
tion in  every  direction  save  where  Ghibelline  potentates  such  as 
Ezzehn  and  Uberto  prevented  its  introduction.  We  chance  to 
have  an  illustration  of  the  process  in  the  records  of  the  Uttle 
republic  of  Asti,  on  the  confines  of  Savoy.  It  is  recited  that  in 
1254  two  inquisitors,  Fra  Giovanni  da  Torino  and  Fra  Paulo  da 
Milano,  with  their  associates,  appeared  before  the  council  of  the 
republic  and  announced  to  them  that  the  pope  enjoined  them  to 
admit  the  Inquisition  within  their  territories.  Thereupon  the 
Astigiani  made  answer  that  they  were  ready  to  obey  the  pontiff, 
but  they  had  no  laws  providing  for  persecution  and  it  would  be 
necessary  to  frame  one.  Accordingly  an  ordenamento  was  drawn 
up  prescribing  obedience  to  the  constitutions  of  Innocent  IV.  and 
Frederic  II.,  and  it  was  forthwith  added  to  the  local  statutes. 
Similar  action  was  doubtless  taking  place  in  every  quarter  where 
the  people  had  thus  far  remained  in  ignorance  of  the  new  doc- 
trine that  the  suppression  of  heresy  was  the  first  duty  of  the  gov- 
ernment.* 

The  death  of  Innocent  lY.,  December  7, 1254,  whether  it  was 
the  result  of  Dominican  litanies  or  of  mortification  at  Manfred's 


*  Bern.  Guidon.  Vit.  Innocent.  PP.  IV.  (Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  III.  592).— Wadding, 
ann.  1254,  No.  8. — Ripoll  I.  246.— Sclopis,  Antica  Legislazione  del  Piemonte, 
p.  440. 


222  ITALY. 

success,  made  no  difference  in  the  energy  with  which  the  progress 
of  the  Inquisition  was  pushed.  The  accession  of  Alexander  lY. 
was  signahzed  by  a  succession  of  bulls  re])cating  and  enforcing 
the  regulations  of  his  predecessor,  and  urging  prelates  and  inquisi- 
tors to  increased  activity.  To  overcome  the  resistance  of  such 
cities  as  were  slack  in  the  duty  of  capturing  and  delivering  all 
who  were  designated  for  arrest  by  the  inquisitors,  the  latter  were 
empowered  to  punish  such  delinquency  with  the  heavy  fine  of  two 
hundred  silver  marks.  Under  this  impulsion  Rainerio  assembled 
the  people  of  Milan,  August  1,  1255,  in  the  Piazza  del  Duomo, 
read  to  them  his  commission,  and  gave  them  notice  that,  although 
he  had  hitherto  acted  with  great  mildness,  the  time  had  passed  for 
trifling.  Many  citizens,  he  said,  openly  derided  the  Inquisition  in 
the  public  streets  ;  others  caused  scandal  by  opposing  and  molest- 
ing it.  He  therefore  gave  three  formal  warnings,  attested  by  a 
notarial  instrument  duly  witnessed,  that  all  who  should  continue 
to  indulge  in  detraction  or  should  in  any  way  impede  the  Inquisi- 
tion were  excommunicate  as  fautors  of  heresy,  and  would  be  prose- 
cuted to  such  penalties  as  their  audacity  deserved.* 

As  the  Inquisition  warmed  to  its  work,  the  four  inquisitors 
provided  for  Lombardy  by  Innocent  IV.  proved  insufficient,  and, 
March  20,  1256,  Alexander  IV.  ordered  the  provincial  to  increase 
the  number  to  eight.  He  appears  to  have  been  somewhat  dila- 
tory in  obedience,  for  in  1260  he  was  sharply  reminded  of  the 
command  and  enjoined  no  longer  to  postpone  its  fulfilment.  Pos- 
sibly the  delay  may  have  arisen  from  the  fact  that  in  January, 
1257,  Rainerio  had  risen  to  the  position  of  supreme  inquisitor  over 
the  whole  of  Lombardy  and  the  Marches  of  Genoa  and  Treviso, 
with  power  to  appoint  deputies.  He  thus  was  doubtless  practi- 
cally emancipated  from  the  control  of  the  provincial,  and  was 
able  to  supply  any  deficiency  in  the  working  force  with  those  who 
were  absolutely  dependent  upon  himself.  In  March,  1256,  the  prel- 
ates had  been  requbed  in  the  most  urgent  terms  to  render  aU  aid 
and  support  to  the  inquisitors  ;  and  in  January,  1257,  this  was 
emphasized  by  informing  them  that  those  who  manifested  neglect 
should  not  escape  punishment,  while  those  who  showed  themselves 


*  Ripoll  I.  285.— Raynald.  ann.  1255,  No.  31.— Canipi,  Deir  Hist.  Eccles.  di 
Piacenza,  P.  ii.  pp.  212-13, 402. 


UBERTO    AND    EZZELIN.  223 

zealous  would  find  the  Holy  See  benignant  to  them  in  their  ''  op- 
portunities." The  significance  of  this  is  not  to  be  mistaken,  and 
it  would  be  diflicult  to  set  limits  to  the  power  thus  concentrated 
in  the  hands  of  the  ex-Catharan.* 

Territorially,  however,  his  authority  was  circumscribed  by  the 
possessions  of  Uberto  and  Ezzelin,  within  which  no  inquisitor  dared 
venture.  In  this  very  year,  1257,  Piacenza,  which  had  fallen  un- 
der control  of  Uberto,  was  placed  in  such  complete  hostility  to  the 
Church  that  it  was  deprived  of  its  episcopate,  and  its  bishop,  Al- 
berto, was  transferred  to  Ferrara.  In  Vicenza,  which  was  ruled 
by  Ezzelin,  matters  were  even  worse.  There  the  heretics  had  a 
recognized  chief  named  Piero  Gallo,  of  the  Borgo  di  San  Piero, 
whose  name  was  adopted  by  them  as  a  rallying  cry,  to  which  the 
Catholics  responded  with  "  viva  VoJ/pe  /" — a  member  of  the  family 
of  Volpe  being  the  leader  of  their  faction ;  and  so  thoroughly  did 
this  become  encrusted  in  the  habits  of  the  people  that  we  are  told 
in  the  seventeenth  century  that  the  cry  of  the  citizens  of  the  Borgo 
(then  corruptly  called  Porsampiero)  was  still  "  viva  Gallo  ,^"  while 
that  of  the  dwellers  in  the  Piazza  and  Porta  Nuova  was  "  viva 
Yoljpe  P''  Ezzehn  would  permit  no  persecution,  and  when  the 
blessed  Bortolamio  di  Breganze,  one  of  the  immediate  disciples  of 
St.  Dominic,  was  made  Bishop  of  Yicenza,  in  1256,  he  was  reduced 
to  seeking  conversions  by  persuasion.  After  preaching  for  a  while 
with  little  effect  he  had  a  public  discussion  with  Piero  Gallo,  and 
so  impressed  him  by  argument  that  the  heretic  was  converted.  We 
may  reasonably  doubt  the  assertion  that  Ezzelin's  displeasure  at 
this  feat  was  the  cause  of  Bortolamio's  banishment  from  his  see, 
but,  whatever  was  the  motive,  he  was  consoled  by  Alexander  IV., 
who  sent  him  as  nuncio  to  England.  During  his  absence,  in  1258, 
his  archdeacon,  Bernardo  NiceUi,  was  bolder,  and  made  a  capture 
of  importance  in  the  person  of  the  Catharan  Bishop,  Viviano  Bo- 
golo.  He  endeavored  to  convert  his  prisoner,  but  his  powers  of 
persuasion  were  insufiicient,  and  Ezzelin  interfered  and  set  the 
heretic  at  liberty.f 

So  long  as  these  GhibeUine  chiefs  retained  power  it  was  evident 


*  Ripoll  I.  300,  326,  327,  399.— Potthast  No.  16292. 

t  Campi,  Deir  Hist.  Eccles.  di  Piacenza,  P.  ii.  pp.  214-15. —  Barbarano  de' 
Mironi,  Hist.  Eccles.  di  Vicenza,  H.  99, 104. 


224  ITALY. 

that  the  foothold  of  heresy  was  secure,  and  that  the  hopes  based 
on  the  death  of  Frederic  II.  were  not  destined  to  fruition.  Every 
motive  had  long  conspired  to  render  the  Church  eager  for  the 
destruction  of  Ezzehn,  who  was  its  most  dreaded  antagonist,  and 
every  expedient  had  been  tried  to  reduce  him  to  subjection.  As 
far  back  as  1221  Gregory  IX.,  then  legate  in  Lombardy,  had  ex- 
torted from  him  assurances  of  his  hatred  of  heresy.  In  1231  his 
sons,  Ezzelin  and  Alberico,  were  at  the  papal  court  expressing 
horror  at  his  crimes  and  promising  to  deliver  him  up  for  trial  as  a 
heretic  if  he  would  not  reform,  in  order  to  escape  the  disinherit- 
ance which  they  would  otherwise  incur  under  Frederic's  laws. 
They  pledged  themselves,  moreover,  to  deliver  to  him  letters  from 
Gregory,  dated  September  1,  in  which  he  was  bitterly  reproached 
for  his  protection  of  heretics,  and  told  that  if  he  would  humbly 
acknowledge  his  errors  and  expel  all  heretics  from  his  lands  he 
might  come  within  two  months  to  the  Holy  See,  prepared  to  obey 
implicitly  all  commands  laid  upon  him;  otherwise  heaven  and 
earth  would  be  invoked  against  him,  his  lands  should  be  aban- 
doned to  seizure,  and  he,  who  was  already  a  scandal  and  a  horror 
to  men,  should  become  an  eternal  opprobrium.* 

Whether  the  sons  dutifully  presented  to  their  father  this  por- 
tentous epistle  does  not  appear,  nor  is  it  of  any  importance  save 
as  showing  how  Ezzehn  was  already  regarded  as  the  mainstay  of 
heresy,  and  how  habitually  zeal  for  the  faith  was  made  to  cover 
the  ambitious  political  designs  of  the  Church.  Ezzelin's  courage 
never  wavered,  and  his  adventurous  career  was  pui'sued  with 
scarce  a  check.  When  Frederic  II.  overcame  the  resistance  of 
Lombardy,  he  gave,  in  1238,  his  natural  daughter  Selvaggia  to 
Ezzelin  in  marriage  and  created  him  imperial  vicar.  The  unani- 
mous testimony  of  the  ecclesiastical  chroniclers  represents  him  as 
a  monster  whose  crimes  almost  transcend  the  capacity  for  evil  of 
human  nature,  but  the  unreheved  blackness  of  the  picture  defeats 
the  object  of  the  painter.  Possibly  he  may  have  been  among  the 
worst  of  the  Italian  despots  of  the  time,  when  faithlessness  and 
contempt  for  human  suffering  were  the  rule,  but  the  long  un- 
broken success  which  attended  him  shows  that  he  must  have  had 
qualities  which  attached  men  to  him,  and  the  report  that  he  was 


Epistt.  Saecul.  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  451.— Raynald.  ann.  1231,  No.  30-23. 


EZZELINO  DA  ROMANO.  225 

twice  moved  to  tears  by  the  eloquence  of  Fra  Giovanni  Schio  in- 
dicates a  degree  of  sensibility  impossible  in  one  utterly  depraved. 
In  fact,  the  anecdote  related  by  Benvenuto  da  Imola,  that  he  car- 
ried on  his  back  his  sister's  lover  Bordello  to  and  from  the  place 
of  assignation,  and  then  gave  the  frightened  troubadour  a  friendly 
warning,  presupposes  a  character  wholly  at  variance  with  that 
currently  attributed  to  him.  Some  of  the  stories  circulated  to 
excite  odium  against  him  are  so  absurdly  exaggerated  as  to  cast 
doubt  upon  all  the  accusations  of  the  papalist  writers.* 

Gregory's  letters  of  September  1,  1231,  were  simply  a  ruse. 
So  far  was  he  from  awaiting  the  two  months'  delay  for  Ezzelin  to 
present  himself,  that  three  days  later,  on  September  4,  he  executed 
his  threat  by  ordering  the  Bishops  of  Eeggio,  Modena,  Brescia, 
and  Mantua  to  offer  Ezzelin's  lands  to  the  spoiler,  and  to  preach 
the  cross  against  him,  with  the  same  indulgences  as  for  the  Holy 
Land.  This  proved  a  failure,  and  when  Fra  Giovanni  Schio  was 
sent  on  his  mission  of  peace,  in  1233,  Ezzehn's  absolution  was  in- 
cluded in  the  general  pacification,  though  he  had  not  abandoned 
the  protection  of  heresy,  which  had  been  the  ostensible  reason  for 
assaihng  him.  While  Frederic  was  at  peace  wath  the  Church, 
Ezzelin  appears  to  have  been  let  alone ;  and  when  the  quarrel 
broke  out  afresh,  after  the  emperor's  subjugation  of  Lombardy, 
EzzeUn  was  again  attacked.  Frederic's  excommunication  of  April 
7, 1239,  was  followed,  November  20,  by  that  of  Ezzelin.  This  time 
there  is  no  mention  of  fautorship  of  heresy,  but  only  of  his  en- 
croachments on  the  church  of  Treviso  and  of  Ms  remaining  under 
excommunication  for  more  than  three  years.  A  month  is  given 
to  him  to  submit,  after  which  he  is  to  be  proceeded  against  as  a 
heretic,  for  the  Church  had  already  discovered  the  convenience  o^ 
treating  disobedience  as  heresy.  Nothing  came  of  this,  and  in 
1244  Innocent  IV.  resolved  to  see  whether  the  Inquisition  could 
not  be  used  to  better  effect.  Fra  Rolando  da  Cremona,  whose 
dauntless  energy  w^e  have  witnessed,  was  commissioned  to  make 
inquest  on  him  as  on  one  suspected  and  publicly  defamed  for  her- 


*  Chabaneau  (Vaissette,  fid.  Privat,  X.  314).— Monach.  Patavin.  Cbron.  (Mu- 
ratori,  S.  K.  I.  VIII.  707-9). —Frederic  II.  is  similarly  described  by  the  papal 
scribes  as  a  monster  delighting  in  objectless  cruelty.     See  Vit.  Gregor.  PP.  IX. 
(Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  Ill,  583-4). 
II.— 15 


226  ITALY. 

esy  by  reason  of  his  association  with  heretics ;  and  as  the  accused 
was  "terrible  and  powerful,"  the  inquisitor  was  empowered  to 
publish  the  legal  citations  in  any  place  where  he  could  do  so  in 
safety.  The  result  of  this  trial  in  absentia  was  conclusive.  It 
was  found  that  he  was  the  son  of  a  heretic,  that  his  kinsmen  were 
heretics,  that  under  his  protection  heresy  had  spread  throughout 
the  March  of  Treviso,  and  it  was  decided  that  he  did  not  believe 
in  the  faith  of  Christ,  and  must  be  held  suspect  of  heresy.  In 
March,  1248,  Innocent  pronounced  his  condemnation  as  a  manifest 
heretic  to  receive  the  reward  of  damnation  incurred  by  damned 
heretics,  but  promised  him  that  he  would  learn  the  abundant 
clemency  of  the  Church  if  he  would  present  himself  in  person  by 
the  next  Ascension  day  (May  28).  The  wary  old  chief  did  not 
allow  his  curiosity  as  to  the  extent  of  papal  clemency  to  overcome 
his  caution,  and  abstained  from  placing  his  person  in  Innocent's 
power.  He  sent  envoys,  however,  who  offered  to  purge  him  of 
the  suspicion  of  heresy  by  swearing  to  his  orthodoxy ;  but  Inno- 
cent held  that  he  must  appear  in  person,  and  offered  him  a  safe- 
conduct  in  coming  and  going.  There  was  no  security  promised 
in  staying,  however,  and  Ezzelin  was  cautious.  The  term  allowed 
him  passed  away,  and  he  was  duly  excommunicated.  After  two 
years  more  he  was  notified  that  unless  he  appeared  by  August  1, 
1250,  he  would  be  subjected  to  the  statutes  against  heresy.  The 
obdurate  sinner  was  equally  unmoved  by  this,  and  in  June,  1251, 
the  Bishop  of  Treviso  and  the  Dominican  Prior  of  Mantua  were 
ordered  to  summon  him  personally  again  to  appear  by  a  given 
time,  offering  him  ample  security  for  his  safety :  if  he  disobeyed, 
his  subjects  of  Treviso  were  commanded  to  coerce  him,  and  if  this 
failed  a  crusade  was  to  be  preached  against  him.* 

To  a  pope  desirous  of  extending  his  temporal  sway  it  was  ex- 
ceedingly convenient  to  condemn  his  political  opponents  for  heresy, 
and  exceedingly  economical  to  pay  for  their  subjugation  by  lav- 
ishing the  treasures  of  salvation.  Thus,  in  April,  1253,  Innocent 
IV.,  as  an  episode  in  his  quarrel  with  Brancaleone,  Senator  of 
Rome,  ordered  the  Dominicans  of  the  Eoman  province  to  preach 


•  Epistt.  Saecul.  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  453,  741,  757-9.  —  Ripoll  I.  59,  135,  193.— 
Potthast  No.  12899.  —  Berger,  Registres  d'Innocent  IV.  No.  4095.  —  Raynald. 
Annal.  ann.  1348.  No.  25-6.— Harduin.  Concil.  VII.  362. 


EZZELINO   DA   ROMANO.  227 

a  crusade,  with  Holy-Land  indulgences,  against  the  so-called  here- 
tics of  Tuscany.  Preparations  were  similarly  made,  on  a  larger 
scale,  to  crush  those  of  Lombardy,  where  heresy  was  described  as 
being  more  rampant  and  aggressive  than  ever.  For  two  years  a 
succession  of  bulls  was  issued  directing  all  prelates,  and  especially 
the  inquisitors,  to  preach  the  cross  against  them,  with  a  most  hb- 
eral  assortment  of  indulgences.  In  one  of  these  absolution  was 
actually  offered  to  those  who  held  property  wrongfully  acquired, 
provided  they  contributed  its  value  in  aid  of  the  crusade,  thus 
deliberately  rendering  the  Church  an  accomphce  in  robbery.  In 
another,  all  persons  or  communities  neglecting  to  aid  the  crusade 
were  ordered  to  be  prosecuted  by  the  inquisitors  as  f  autors  of  her- 
esy. As  a  formal  preliminary,  Ezzelin  was  again  cited,  April  9, 
1254,  to  present  himself  for  judgment  by  the  next  Ascension  day 
(May  21),  failing  which  he  was  sentenced  as  a  manifest  heretic,  to 
be  dealt  with  as  such.  In  aU  these  proceedings  the  curious  trav- 
esty of  an  inquisitorial  trial  shows  us  the  influence  which  the  In- 
quisition was  already  exercising  on  the  minds  of  churchmen,  and 
the  employment  of  inquisitors  proves  how  useful  the  institution 
was  becoming  as  a  factor  in  advancing  the  power  of  the  Holy 
See.* 

The  KeapoUtan  conquest  and  the  death  of  Innocent  IV.  post- 
poned the  organization  of  the  crusade,  but  at  length,  in  June,  1256, 
it  set  out  from  Yenice  under  the  leadership  of  the  Legate  Filippo, 
Archbishop-elect  of  Kavenna.  The  capture  by  assault  of  Padua, 
Ezzehn's  most  important  city,  was  an  encouraging  commencement 
of  the  campaign,  but  the  seven-days'  sack,  to  which  the  unfortu- 
nate town  was  abandoned,  showed  that  the  soldiers  of  the  cross 
were  determined  to  make  the  most  of  the  indulgences  which  they 
had  earned.  Under  its  incompetent  captain  the  crusade  dragged 
on  without  further  result,  in  spite  of  reiterated  bulls  offering  sal- 
vation, until,  in  1258,  the  legate  was  utterly  routed  near  Brescia 
and  captured,  together  with  his  astrologer,  the  Dominican  Ever- 
ard.  Brescia  fell  into  Ezzelin's  hands,  who,  more  powerful  than 
ever,  entertained  designs  upon  Milan,  where  he  had  relations  with 
the  GhibeUine  faction.     When  all  danger  seemed  to  him  past, 


•  RipoU  I.  230,  247,  249-51,  286,  201.  —  Mag.  Bull.  Rom.  I.  102-4-  —  Pcgna; 
Append.  Eymeric.  p.  77.— Harduin.  Concil.  VII.  362. 


228  ITALY. 

however,  there  was  a  sudden  re\T]lsion  of  fortune.  The  Ghibel- 
line  chiefs  of  Lombardy,  Uberto  Pallavicino  and  Buoso  di  Do  vara, 
lords  of  (Jremona,  had  been  in  alliance  with  him ;  they  had  aided 
in  the  capture  of  Brescia,  with  the  understanding  that  they  were 
to  share  in  its  possession,  but  he  had  monopolized  the  conquest, 
and  they  were  resolved  on  revenge.  June  11,  1259,  they  signed  a 
treaty  against  Ezzelin  with  the  Milanese  and  with  Azzo  d'Este, 
the  head  of  the  Lombard  Guelfs.  Ezzelin  took  the  field  with  a 
heavy  force,  hoping  to  gain  possession  of  Milan  through  the  intel- 
hgences  which  he  had  within  the  walls,  but  on  the  march  he  Avas 
attacked  by  Uberto,  Buoso,  and  Azzo,  who  by  skilful  strategy 
dispersed  his  troops  and  captured  him,  grievously  wounded.  His 
savage  pride  would  not  brook  this  degradation :  he  tore  the  band- 
ages from  his  wound,  refused  all  aid,  and  died  in  a  few  days.^ 

No  greater  service  could  have  been  rendered  to  the  Church 
than  that  performed  by  Uberto,  who  had  been  in  field  and  coun- 
cil the  soul  of  the  alliance  that  destroyed  the  dreaded  Ezzelin 
and  threw  open,  after  thirty  years  of  fruitless  effort,  the  March 
of  Treviso  to  the  Inquisition.  Some  show  of  favor  in  return  for 
such  services  would  not  have  been  amiss ;  would  perhaps,  indeed, 
have  been  wise,  as  it  might  have  won  over  the  powerful  Ghibel- 
line  chief.  In  the  treaty  of  June  11,  however,  the  aUies  had  al- 
luded to  Manfred  as  King  of  Sicily,  and  had  pledged  themselves 
to  labor  for  his  reconcihation  with  the  pope.  No  service,  espe- 
cially after  it  had  become  irrevocable,  could  overbalance  this  rec- 
ognition of  the  hated  son  of  Frederic.  Uberto,  Buoso,  and  the 
Cremonese  had  been  absolved  from  excommunication  when  they 
entered  the  alhance,  but  Alexander  lY.  wrote,  December  13, 1259, 


*  Raynald.  ann.  1257,  No.  38-9;  1258,  No.  1-4;  1259,  No.  1-3.  —  Rolandini 
Chron.  Lib.  ix.-xii.  (Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  VIIL  299-352).— Monach.  Patavin.  Chron. 
(lb.  VIII.  691-705).— Nic.  Smeregi  Chron.  (lb.  VIIL  101).— Wadding,  ann.  1258, 
No.  6.— Mag.  Bull.  Rom.  I.  118. 

The  ferocity  of  the  age  is  seen  in  the  treatment  bestowed  on  Ezzelin's  brother 
Alberico,  when  captured  with  his  family.  He  was  gagged  and  tied  to  a  tree,  his 
wife  and  daughters  were  burned  alive  before  his  eyes,  his  sons  were  slain  and 
their  limbs  thrown  in  his  face,  and  then  he  was  deliberately  hacked  in  pieces. — 
Laurentii  de  Monacis  Ezerinus  III.  (Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  VIII.  150).  Alberico  was 
a  man  of  culture,  a  troubadour,  and  a  patron  of  the  gai  science  (Vaissette,  fid. 
Privat,  X.  313). 


UBERTO  PALLAVICINO.  229 

to  his  legate  in  Lombardy  that  the  absolution  was  worthless  be- 
cause it  had  not  been  administered  by  a  Dominican  or  a  Fran- 
ciscan, who  alone  were  empowered  to  grant  it;  if,  however,  the 
allies  would  repudiate  Manfred  and  give  sufficient  security  to 
obey  the  mandates  of  the  Church  and  to  restore  all  Church  prop- 
erty, they  might  still  be  absolved.* 

Apparently  Alexander's  head  had  been  turned  by  the  triumph 
over  Ezzelin,  but  he  knew  little  of  the  man  whom  he  thus  treated 
with  such  supercilious  ingratitude.  By  intrigues  with  the  Torriani 
and  other  powerful  nobles  of  Milan,  Uberto  created  for  himself 
a  party  in  that  city,  and  in  1260  he  procured  his  election  as 
podesta  for  five  years.  Rainerio  Saccone  vainly  endeavored  to 
prevent  a  consummation  so  deplorable.  He  assembled  the  citi- 
zens, denounced  Uberto  as  vehemently  suspected  of  heresy  and  as 
a  manifest  defender  of  heretics,  and  threatened  that  if  it  was  per- 
sisted in  he  would  ring  all  the  church  bells,  and  summon  the 
people  and  clergy  and  Crocesegnati  to  oppose  it  by  force.  Unfort- 
unately the  citizens  did  not  take  in  good  part  this  somewhat  in- 
solent interference  of  a  stranger  with  their  internal  affairs  ;  or,  as 
Alexander  IV.  describes  it,  "  this  wholesome  counsel  given  in  the 
spirit  of  humility  and  kindness."  In  wrath  they  assembled  and 
rushed  to  the  Dominican  convent,  where  they  gave  Rainerio  the 
alternative  of  leaving  the  city  or  faring  worse.  He  chose  the 
wiser  alternative  and  departed. f 

It  was  in  vain  that  Alexander,  in  the  bull  detailing  these  griefs, 
ordered  Rainerio  and  the  other  inquisitors  to  prosecute  the  guilty 
parties.  It  was  in  vain  also  that  he  approved,  October  14,  1260, 
the  statutes  of  an  association  of  Defenders  of  the  Faith  recently 
formed  in  Milan  in  honor  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Blessed  Virgin,  St. 
John  the  Baptist,  and  St.  Peter  Martyr,  whose  members  pledged 
themselves  to  give  assistance,  armed  or  otherwise,  to  the  Inquisi- 
tion in  its  labors  for  the  extermination  of  heresy.  Uberto  was 
now  the  most  powerful  man  in  Lombardy,  and  wherever  his  in- 
fluence extended  he  prohibited  inquisitors  from  performing  their 
functions.  Heretics  were  safe  under  his  rule,  and  they  flocked  to 
his  territories  from  other  parts  of  Lombai'dy  and  from  Languedoc 


•  Raynald.  ann.  1259,  No.  6-9. 

t  Ripoll  I.  398.— Bern.  Corio,  Hist.  Milanese,  ann.  1259. 


230  ITALY. 

and  Provence.  One  of  his  confidential  servitors  was  a  certain 
Berent^er,  who  had  been  condemned  for  heresy.  Alexander  lost 
no  time  in  repeating  with  him  the  comedy  of  an  inquisitorial  trial, 
which  we  have  seen  performed  with  Ezzehn.  December  9,  1260, 
he  addressed  instructions  to  the  inquisitors  of  Lomhardy  to  cite 
him,  from  some  safe  place,  to  the  papal  presence  within  two 
months,  offering  him  a  safe-conduct  for  coming  (but  not  for  going), 
when  if  he  can  prove  his  innocence  he  will  be  admitted  to  swear 
obedience  to  the  papal  mandates.  If  he  does  not  appear,  he  is  to 
be  proceeded  against  inquisitorially.* 

Uberto  cared  as  little  as  Ezzelin  for  the  impotent  papal  thun- 
der, and  quietly  went  on  strengthening  his  position  and  adding 
city  after  city  to  his  dominions,  in  spite  of  Alexander's  instructions 
to  Rainerio  and  his  inquisitors  to  act  vigorously  and  to  preach  a 
crusade.  Between  his  success  in  the  north,  and  the  daily  extend- 
ing influence  of  Manfred's  wise  and  vigorous  rule  in  the  south,  it 
looked  for  a  while  as  though  the  ambitious  designs  of  the  papacy 
were  permanently  crushed,  and  that  the  Italian  Inquisition  might 
come  to  an  untimely  end.  Inquisitors  were  no  longer  able  to 
move  around  in  safety,  even  in  the  Roman  province,  and  prelates 
and  cities  were  ordered  to  provide  them  with  a  sufficient  guard  in 
all  their  journeys.  An  indication  of  the  popular  feeling  is  afforded 
by  the  action  taken  in  1264  by  the  people  of  Bergamo,  greatly  to 
the  indignation  of  the  Roman  curia,  to  defend  themselves  against 
the  arbitrary  methods  of  inquisitorial  procedure.  They  enacted 
that  any  one  cited  or  excommunicated  for  heresy  or  fautorship 
might  take  an  oath  before  the  prosecutor  or  bishop  that  he  held 
the  faith  of  the  Chm'ch  of  Rome  in  aU  its  details,  and  then  anoth- 
er oath  before  the  podesta  binding  himself  to  pay  one  hundred 
sols  every  time  that  he  deviated  from  it ;  after  this  he  could  not  be 
cited  outside  of  the  city,  and  was  eligible  to  any  municipal  office 
within  it,  while  the  magistrates  were  to  defend  him  at  the  pub- 
lic expense  against  any  such  citation  or  excommunication.  Yet 
outside  of  Uberto's  territories  and  influence  the  business  of  the 
Inquisition  in  Lombardy  went  steadily  on.  In  1265  and  1266 
Clement  IV.  is  found  issuing  instructions  as  to  the  duties  and  ap- 
pointment of  inquisitors  as  vigorously  as  though  there  were  no 


*  Arch,  de  I'Inquis.  de  Carcassone  (Doat,  XXXI.).— Ripoll  I.  400. 


CRUSADE   AGAINST   NAPLES.  231 

impediments  to  their  functions.  It  seemed  only  a  question  of 
time,  however,  when  the  districts  yet  open  should  be  closed  to 
them.* 

There  have  been  few  revolutions  more  pregnant  with  results 
than  that  which  occurred  when  the  popes,  renouncing  the  hope  of 
acquiring  for  themselves  the  kingdom  of  Sicily,  and  vainly  tempt- 
ing Edmond,  son  of  Henry  III.  of  England,  succeeded  in  arousing 
the  ambition  of  Charles  of  Anjou,  and  caused  a  crusade  to  be 
preached  everywhere  in  his  behalf.  The  papacy  fuUy  recognized 
the  supreme  importance  of  the  issue,  and  staked  everything  upon 
it.  The  treasures  of  salvation  were  poured  forth  with  unstinted 
hand,  and  plenary  indulgences  were  given  to  all  who  would  con- 
tribute a  fourth  of  their  income  or  a  tenth  of  their  property.  The 
temporal  treasury  of  the  Church  was  drawn  upon  with  equal  hb- 
eraUty.  Three  years'  tithe  of  ah.  ecclesiastical  revenues  in  France 
and  Flanders  were  granted  to  Charles,  and  when  all  this  proved 
insuiRcient,  Clement  lY.  sacrificed  the  property  of  the  Roman 
churches  without  hesitation.  An  effort  to  raise  one  hundred  thou- 
sand livres  by  pledging  it  brought  in  only  thirty  thousand,  and  then 
he  pawned  for  fifty  thousand  more  the  plate  and  jewels  of  the  Holy 
See.  He  could  truly  answer  Charles's  increasing  demands  for 
money  to  support  his  naked  and  starving  crusaders  b}"  declaring 
that  he  had  done  all  he  could,  and  that  he  was  completely  ex- 
hausted— he  had  no  mountains  and  rivers  of  gold,  and  could  not 
turn  earth  and  stones  into  coin.  So  utter  was  his  penury  that  the 
cardinals  were  reduced  to  living  at  the  expense  of  the  monasteries  ; 
and  when  the  Abbot  of  Casa  Dei  complained  of  the  number  quar- 
tered on  him,  he  was  told  that  he  would  be  relieved  of  the  Cardinal 
of  Ostia,  but  that  he  must  support  the  rest.  More  permanent  relief, 
however,  was  found  at  the  expense  of  the  foreigner  by  assigning  to 


*  Potthast  No.  17984-5.— Arch,  de  I'Inquis.  de  Care.  (Doat,  XXXI.  216).— 
RipoU  I.  402,  460,  462,  466,  469,  478.— Raynald.  ann.  1260,  No.  12.— Mag.  Bull. 
Rom.  I.  119. 

The  bull  threatening  the  people  of  Bergamo  with  interdict  for  their  legisla- 
tion is  by  Urban  IV.  and  dated  in  1264,  as  found  in  the  archives  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion of  Carcassonne  (Doat,  XXX.  288),  while  Ripoll  (I.  499)  gives  it  as  by  Clement 
IV.  in  1265,  showing  that  the  Bergamese  were  obstinate.  Bergamo  had  been 
under  interdict  for  adhering  to  Frederic  and  Conrad,  and  had  only  been  recon- 
ciled after  the  death  of  the  latter  in  1255  (Ripoll  I.  268). 


232  ITALY. 

them  revenues  on  churches  abroad  on  the  liberal  scale  of  three 
hundred  marks  a  year  apiece.* 

Vainly  Pallavicino  sought  to  prevent  the  passage  of  the  cru- 
saders through  Lombardy.  The  fate  of  Italy— one  may  almost 
say  of  the  papacy — was  decided,  February  26,  1266,  on  the  plain 
of  Benevento,  where  Guelf  and  Ghibelline  from  all  portions  of  the 
Peninsula  faced  each  other.  Had  Charles  been  defeated  it  would 
have  fared  ill  with  the  Holy  See.  Europe  had  looked  with  aver- 
sion on  the  prostitution  of  its  spiritual  power  to  advance  its  tem- 
poral interests,  and  success  alone  could  serve  as  a  justification,  in 
an  age  when  men  looked  on  the  battle  ordeal  as  recording  the 
judgment  of  God.  In  the  previous  August,  Clement  had  despair- 
ingly answered  Charles's  demands  for  money  by  declaring  that  he 
had  none  and  could  get  none — that  England  was  hostile,  that 
Germany  was  almost  openly  in  revolt,  that  France  groaned  and 
complained,  that  Spain  scarce  sufficed  for  her  internal  necessities, 
and  that  Italy  did  not  furnish  her  own  share  of  expenses.  After 
the  battle,  however,  he  could  exultingly  write,  in  May,  to  Cardinal 
Ottoboni  of  San  Adriano,  his  legate  in  England,  that  "  Charles  of 
Anjou  holds  in  peace  the  whole  kingdom  of  that  pestilent  man, 
obtaining  his  putrid  body,  his  wife,  his  children,  and  his  treasure," 
adding  that  already  the  Mark  of  Ancona  had  returned  to  obedi- 
ence, that  Florence,  Siena,  IHstoja,  and  Pisa  had  submitted,  that 
envoys  had  come  from  Uberto  and  Piacenza,  and  that  others  were 
expected  from  Cremona  and  Genoa ;  and  on  June  1  he  announced 
the  submission  of  Uberto  and  of  Piacenza  and  Cremona.f 

Although  one  by  one  Pallavicino's  cities  revolted  from  him  in 
the  general  terror,  his  submission  was  only  to  gain  time,  and  in 
1267  he  risked  another  cast  of  the  die  by  joining  in  the  invitation 
to  Italy  of  the  j'^oung  Conradin,  but  the  defeat  and  capture  of 
that  prince  at  Tagliacozza,  in  August,  1268,  followed  by  his  bar- 
barous execution  in  October,  extinguished  the  house  of  Suabia 
and  the  hopes  of  the  Ghibellines.  Charles  of  Anjou  was  master 
of  Italy ;  he  was  created  imperial  vicar  in  Tuscany ;  even  in  the 

*  Epistt.  Urbani  PP.  IV.  (Martene  Thesaur.  II.  9-50,  74-9,116-18,220-37.)— 
Epistt.  Clement.  PP.  IV.  (Ibid.  pp.  176,  186,  196-200,  213,  218,  241-5,  250,  260, 
274). 

t  Epistt.  Clem.  PP.  IV.  (Martene  Thesaur.  II.  174,  319,  327).  — Raynald,  ann. 
1266,  No.  23. 


TRIUMPH  OF  THE  CHURCH.  233 

north  we  find  him  this  year  appointing  Adalberto  de'  Gamberti 
as  podesta  in  Piacenza.  Before  the  close  of  1268  Pallavicino  died, 
broken  with  age  and  in  utter  misery,  while  besieged  in  his  castle 
of  Gusaliggio  by  the  Piacenzans  and  Parmesans.  For  a  presumed 
heretic  he  made  a  good  end,  surrounded  by  Dominicans  and 
Franciscans,  confessing  his  sins  and  receiving  the  viaticum,  so 
that,  as  a  pious  chronicler  observes,  we  may  humbly  beheve  that 
his  soul  was  saved.  Despite  the  calumnies  of  the  papalists,  he 
left  the  reputation  of  a  man  of  sterhng  worth,  of  lofty  aims,  and 
of  great  capacity.  As  for  Kainerio  Saccone,  the  last  glimpse  we 
have  of  him  is  in  July,  1262,  when  Urban  IV.  orders  him  to  come 
with  all  possible  speed  for  consultation  on  a  matter  of  moment, 
defraying,  from  the  proceeds  of  the  confiscations,  all  expenses  for 
horses  and  other  necessaries  on  the  journey.  Tlis  expulsion  from 
Milan  had  evidently  not  diminished  his  importance.* 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  long  interregnum  of  nearly 
three  years,  which  occurred  after  the  death  of  Clement  IV.,  in 
1268,  made  little  difference.  Henceforth  there  was  to  be  no  ref- 
uge for  heresy.  The  Inquisition  could  be  organized  everywhere, 
and  could  perform  its  functions  unhampered.  By  this  time,  too, 
its  powers,  its  duties,  and  its  mode  of  procedure  had  become 
thoroughly  defined  and  universally  recognized,  and  neither  prelate 
nor  potentate  dared  to  call  them  in  question.  As  already  stated, 
in  1254,  Innocent  IV.  had  divided  the  Peninsula  between  the  two 
Orders,  giving  Genoa  and  Lombardy  to  the  Dominicans,  and  cen- 
tral and  southern  Italy  to  the  Franciscans.  To  the  provinces  of 
Rome  and  Tuscany  were  allotted  two  inquisitors  each,  while  for 
that  of  St.  Francis,  or  Spoleto,  one  was  deemed  sufficient,  but 
in  1261  each  inquisitor  was  furnished  with  two  assistants,  and 
the  provincials  were  instructed  to  a]i])oint  as  many  moi^e  as  might 
be  asked  for,  so  that  the  holy  work  might  be  prosecuted  with  full 
vigor.  Lombardy,  as  we  have  seen,  had  eight  inquisitors,  and 
when  the  Dominicans  divided  that  province,  in  1304,  the  number 
was  increased  to  ten,  seven  being  assigned  to  Upper  and  three  to 
Lower  Lombardy.     For  a  while  the  March  of  Treviso  and  Ro- 


•  Ripoll  I.  427,  514.— Carapi,  Dell'  Hist.  Eccles.  di  Piacenza,  P.  ir.  pp.  218-31. 
— Philippi  Bergomat.  Supplem.  Chron.  ann.  1261. 


234  ITALY. 

mairnola  were  intrusted  to  the  Franciscans,  but,  as  stated  above 
(Vol.  I.  p.  477),  their  extortions  were  so  unendurable  that,  in  1302, 
Boniface  VIII.  transferred  these  districts  to  the  Dominicans,  with- 
out thereby  relieving  the  people.* 

No  time  had  been  lost  in  enforcing  unity  of  belief  in  the  terri- 
tories redeemed  from  GhibeUine  control.  As  early  as  February, 
1259,  the  Franciscan  Minister  of  Bologna  was  ordered  to  appoint 
two  friars  as  inquisitors  in  Koraagnola.  At  Vicenza,  no  sooner 
was  quiet  restored  after  the  death  of  Ezzelin  than  Fra  Giovanni 
Schio  was  sent  thither  to  remove  the  excommunication  incurred 
by  the  people  in  consequence  of  their  subjection  to  Ezzelin.  The 
ceremony  was  symbolic  of  the  scourging  inflicted  on  penitents. 
The  podesta  and  council  assembled  at  the  usual  place  of  meeting, 
whence  they  marched  in  pairs  to  the  cathedral.  At  the  south 
portal  stood  Giovanni  with  seven  priests,  and  as  the  magistrates 
entered  they  touched  each  one  lightly  with  rods,  after  which  the 
rites  of  absolution  were  solemnly  performed.  The  exiled  bishop, 
Bortolamio,  on  his  return  from  England  had  tarried  with  St.  Louis, 
whose  confessor  he  had  been  in  Palestine,  where  he  had  served  as 
papal  legate  during  the  saintly  king's  crusade.  As  soon  as  he 
heard  of  the  death  of  Ezzelin  he  hastened  homeward,  bearing 
with  him  the  priceless  treasures  of  a  thorn  of  the  crown  and  a 
piece  of  the  cross  which  St.  Louis  had  bestowed  upon  him  in  part- 
ing. At  once  he  commenced  to  build  the  great  Dominican  church 
and  convent  of  the  Santa  Corona.  The  site  chosen  was  on  the 
most  elevated  spot  in  the  city,  known  as  the  Colle,  and  among  the 
buildings  destroyed  to  give  place  for  it  was  the  church  of  Santa 
Croce,  which  had  been  occupied  by  the  heretics  as  their  place  of 
assembly  and  worship.  We  are  told  that  the  presence  of  the  relics 
worked  the  miracle  of  relieving  the  city  of  its  three  leading  sins — 
avarice,  heresy,  and  discord.  As  for  heresy,  the  miracle  lay  in 
the  unlooked-for  conversion  of  the  chief  heretic  of  the  district, 
Gieremia,  known  as  the  Archbishop  of  the  Mark,  who,  with  his  son 
Alticlero,  made  pubUc  recantation.  The  heretic  bishop,  Viviano 
Bogolo,  fled  to  Pavia,  where  he  was  recognized  and  burned.  His 
two  deacons,  Olderico  da  Marola  and  Tolomeo,  with  eight  others, 


*  Wadding,  ann.  1254,  No.  7,  8, 11, 16 ;  1261,  No.  2.— Grandjean,  Registres  de 
Benoit  XI.  No.  1167.— Ripoll  H.  87. 


REDUCTION  OF  SERMIONE.  235 

probably  Perfects,  were  obstinate,  and  were  promptly  burned. 
These  examples  were  sufficient.  The  "  credentes  "  furnished  no 
further  martyrs,  and  heresy,  at  least  in  its  outward  manifestation, 
was  extinguished.* 

In  some  places,  unblessed  Avith  such  wonder-working  relics, 
however,  the  Inquisition  had  much  greater  trouble  in  establishing 
orthodoxy.  In  Piacenza  it  is  said  to  have  found  the  burning  of 
twenty-eight  wagon  loads  of  heretics  necessary.  At  Sermione 
for  sixteen  years  the  inhabitants  defiantly  refused  to  allow  perse- 
cution. Though  Catholic  themselves,  they  continued  to  afford 
protection  to  heretics,  who  naturally  flocked  thither  as  one  refuge 
after  another  was  rendered  unsafe  by  the  zeal  of  the  inquisitors. 
It  was  in  vain  that  Fra  Timedeo,  the  inquisitor,  obtained  evidence 
by  sending  there  a  female  spy,  named  Costanza  da  Bergamo,  who 
pretended  to  be  a  heretic,  received  the  consolamentu7n,  and  was 
then  unreservedly  admitted  to  their  secrets.  At  last  the  scandal 
of  such  ungodly  toleration  became  unendurable,  and  the  Bishop  of 
Verona  prevailed  upon  Mastino  and  Alberto  della  Scala  of  Ve- 
rona, and  Pinamonte  de'  Bonacolsi  of  Mantua,  to  reduce  Sermione 
to  obedience.  It  was  obliged  to  submit  in  1276,  delivering  up  no 
less  than  one  hundred  and  seventy -four  perfected  heretics,  and 
humbly  asking  to  be  restored  to  Catholic  unity,  with  a  pledge  to 
stand  to  the  mandates  of  the  Church.  Fra  Filippo  Bonaccorso, 
the  Inquisitor  of  Treviso,  applied  to  John  XXI.  for  instructions  as 
to  the  treatment  of  the  penitent  community.  The  pope  was  a 
humane  and  cultured  man  who  cared  more  for  poetry  than  theol- 
ogy, and  he  was  disposed  to  be  lenient  with  repentant  sinners. 
He  instructed  Fra  Filippo  to  remove  the  interdict  if  the  town 
would  appoint  a  syndic  to  abjure  heresy  in  its  name,  and  to  swear 
in  future  to  seize  all  heretics  and  dehver  them  to  the  Inquisition, 
any  infraction  of  the  oath  to  work  a  renewal,  ipso  facto,  of  the 
interdict.  Every  inhabitant  was  then  to  appear  personally  before 
the  inquisitor,  and  make  full  confession  of  everything  relating  to 
heresy,  to  abjure,  and  to  accept  such  penance  as  might  be  assigned 
— all  infamous  penalties,  disabilities,  imprisonment,  and  confisca- 
tion being  mercifully  excluded.     Full  records  were  to  be  kept  of 


•  Wadding,  ann.  1259,  No.  3.  —  Barbarano  de'  Mironi,  Hist.  Eccles.  di  Vi- 
cenza,  II.  95,  105,  108,  113,  121. 


23€  ITALY. 

each  case,  and  any  withholding  of  the  truth  or  subsequent  relapse 
was  to  expose  the  delinquent  to  the  full  rigor  of  the  law.  Obsti- 
nate heretics  were  to  be  dealt  Avith  according  to  the  canons,  and 
of  these  there  were  found  seventy,  whom  Fra  Filippo  duly  con- 
demned, and  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  burned.  To  insure  the 
future  purity  of  the  faith,  in  127S  a  Franciscan  convent  was  built 
at  Sermione  with  the  proceeds  of  a  fine  of  four  thousand  lire  levied 
upon  Verona  as  one  of  the  conditions  of  removing  the  interdict 
incurred  by  its  upholding  the  cause  of  the  unfortunate  Conradin ; 
and  in  1289  Ezzelin's  castle  of  Illasio  was  given  to  some  of  the 
nobles  who  had  been  conspicuous  in  the  reduction  of  Sermione,  as 
a  reward  for  their  service,  and  to  stimulate  them  in  the  future  to 
continue  their  support  of  the  Inquisition.* 

Thus  heresy,  deprived  of  all  protection,  was  gradually  stamped 
out,  and  the  Inquisition  established  its  power  in  every  corner  of 
the  land.  How  that  power  was  abused  to  oppress  the  faithful 
with  ingeniously  devised  schemes  of  extortion  we  have  already 
seen.  In  fact,  in  the  territories  which  had  once  been  GhibeUine, 
it  was  impossible  for  any  man,  no  matter  how  rigid  his  orthodoxy, 
to  be  safe  from  prosecution  if  he  chanced  to  provoke  the  ill-will 
of  the  officials,  or  possessed  wealth  to  excite  their  cupidity.  So 
successful  had  the  Church  been  in  confounding  political  opposition 
with  heresy  that  the  mere  fact  of  having  adhered  of  necessity  to 
Ezzelin  during  the  period  of  his  unquestioned  domination  long 
continued  sufficient  to  justify  prosecution  for  heresy,  entailing  the 
desirable  result  of  confiscation.  When  Ezzelin's  generation  passed 
away,  the  memory  of  the  dead  was  assailed  and  the  descendants 
were  disinherited.  In  all  this  there  was  no  pretence  of  errors  of 
faith,  but  the  men  to  whom  the  Church  intrusted  the  awful  pow- 
ers of  the  Inquisition  seemed  implacably  determined  to  erase  from 
the  land  every  trace  of  those  who  had  once  dared  to  resist  its 
authority.  At  last,  in  1304,  the  authorities  of  Vicenza  appealed 
to  Benedict  XL  no  longer  to  allow  the  few  survivors  of  Ezzehn's 
party  and  their  descendants  to  be  thus  cruelly  wronged,  and  the 
pope  graciously  granted  their  petition.  By  this  time  the  empire 
was  but  a  shadow ;  Ghibellinism  represented  no  living  force  that 


*  Annal.  Mediolanens.  cap.  31  (Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  XVI.  662).— Muratori  Antiq. 
Ital.  XII.  513.— Wadding,  ann.  1377,  No.  10,  11 ;  1278,  No.  33;  1289,  No.  18. 


RESISTANCE  TO   THE  INQUISITION.  237 

the  papacy  could  reasonably  dread,  and  its  persecution  had  long 
been  merely  the  gratification  of  greed  or  malice.* 

The  triumph  of  the  Inquisition  had  not  been  effected  wholly 
without  resistance.  In  1277  Fra  Corrado  Pagano  undertook  a 
raid  against  the  heretics  of  the  Yaltelline.  It  was,  doubtless,  or- 
ganized on  an  extended  scale,  for  he  took  with  him  two  associates 
and  two  notaries.  This  would  indicate  that  heretics  were  numer- 
ous ;  the  event  showed  that  they  did  not  lack  protectors,  for  Cor- 
rado da  Venosta,  one  of  the  most  powerful  nobles  of  the  region, 
cut  short  the  enterprise  by  slaughtering  the  whole  party,  on  St. 
Stephen's  day,  December  26.  Pagano  had  been  a  most  zealous 
persecutor  of  heresy,  and  when  his  body  was  brought  to  Como  it 
lay  there  for  eight  days  before  interment,  with  wounds  freshly 
bleeding,  showing  that  he  was  a  martyr  of  God,  and  justifying  the 
title  bestowed  on  him  by  his  Dominican  brethren  of  St.  Pagano 
of  Como.  His  relics  are  still  preserved  there  and  are  the  objects 
of  a  local  cult.  Nicholas  III.  made  every  effort  to  avenge  the 
murder,  even  invoking  the  assistance  of  Eodolf  of  Hapsburg,  and 
his  joy  was  extreme  when,  in  November,  1279,  the  podesta  and 
people  of  Bergamo  succeeded  in  capturing  Corrado  and  his  accom- 
plices. He  at  once  ordered  their  deUvery,  under  safe  escort,  to 
the  inquisitors,  Anselmo  da  Alessandria,  Daniele  da  Giussano,  and 
Guidone  da  Coconate,  who  were  instructed  to  inflict  a  punishment 
sufficient  to  intimidate  others  from  imitating  their  wickedness,  and 
aU  the  potentates  of  Lombardy  were  commanded  to  co-operate  in 
their  safe  conveyance,  f 

The  same  year  that  justice  was  thus  vindicated,  a  popular  ebul- 
lition in  Parma  shows  how  slender  was  the  hold  which  the  Inqui- 
sition possessed  on  the  people,  Fra  Florio  had  been  diligent  in 
the  exercise  of  his  functions,  and  we  are  told  that  he  had  burned 
innumerable  heretics,  when,  in  1279,  he  chanced  at  Parma  to  have 
before  him  a  woman  guilty  of  relapse.  It  was  a  matter  of  course 
to  condemn  her  to  relaxation,  and  she  was  duly  burned.  In  place 
of  being  piously  impressed  by  the  spectacle  the  Parmesans  were 


*  Grandjean,  Registres  de  Benoit  XI.  No.  508. 

f  Paramo,  p.  264.— Verri,  Storia  di  Milano,  I.  244.— RipoU  I.  567.— Raynald. 
ann.  1278,  No.  78.— In  Doat,  XXXII.  160,  is  the  letter  to  the  authorities  of  Ber- 
gamo, which  Bremond  (Ripoll  ubi  sup.)  says  is  not  to  be  found. 


238  ITALY. 

inspired  by  Satan  to  indignation  which  expressed  itself  by  sacking 
the  Dominican  convent,  destroying  the  records  of  the  Inquisition, 
and  maltreating  the  friars  so  that  one  of  them  died  within  a  few 
days.  The  Dominicans  thereupon  abandoned  the  ungrateful  city, 
marching  out  in  solemn  procession.  The  magistrates  showed 
singular  indifference  as  to  punishing  this  misdeed,  and  when  sum- 
moned by  the  Cardinal  Legate  of  Ostia,  the  representatives  who 
presented  themselves  lacked  the  necessary  authority,  so  that,  after 
vainly  waiting  for  satisfaction,  he  laid  an  interdict  upon  the  city. 
This  was  not  removed  till  1282,  and  even  then  the  guilty  were  not 
punished.  In  1285  we  find  Honorius  IV.  taking  up  the  matter 
afresh  and  summoning  the  Parmesans  to  send  delegates  to  him 
within  a  month  to  receive  sentence ;  what  that  sentence  was  does 
not  appear,  but  in  1287  the  humbled  citizens  petitioned  the  Do- 
minicans to  return,  received  them  with  great  honor,  and  voted 
them  one  thousand  lire,  in  annual  instalments  of  two  hundred  lire, 
wherewith  to  build  a  church.  So  stubborn  was  the  opposition  else- 
where to  the  Inquisition  and  its  ways,  that  in  1287  the  Provincial 
Council  of  Milan  still  deemed  it  necessary  to  decree  that  any  mem- 
ber of  a  municipal  government  in  any  city  within  the  province 
who  should  urge  measures  favoring  heretics  should  be  deemed  sus- 
pect of  heresy,  and  should  forfeit  any  fiefs  or  benefices  held  of 
the  Church.* 

Even  in  the  Patrimony  of  St.  Peter  resistance  was  not  whoUy 
at  an  end.  In  1254,  when  the  papacy  was  triumphant.  Innocent 
IV.  urged  the  inquisitors  of  Orvieto  and  Anagni  to  take  advantage 
of  the  propitious  time  and  act  with  the  utmost  Yigor.  In  1258 
Alexander  IV.  sounded  the  alarm  that  heresy  was  increasing  even 
in  Kome  itself,  and  he  pressingly  urged  increased  activity  on  the 
inquisitors  and  greater  zeal  in  their  support  by  the  bishops.  Their 
efforts  were  not  wholly  successful.  Twenty  years  later  a  knight 
named  Pandolfo  stiU  made  his  stronghold  of  Castro  Siriani,  near 
Anagni,  a  receptacle  of  heretics.     Fra  Sinibaldo  di  Lago,  the  in- 


*  Memor.  Protestat.  Regiens.  ann.  1379,  1382  (Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  Vm.  1146, 
1150). — Bern.  Corio,  Hist.  Milanese,  ann.  1379.— Paramo  Lib.  ii.  Tit.  ii.  cap.  30, 
No.  13.  —  Pegnae  Append,  ad  Eymeric.  p.  55 — Salimbene  Chron.  pp.  274,  276, 
342.— Chron.  Parmens.  ann.  1279,  1282,  1286,  1287  (Muratori,  IX.  792,  799,  809- 
11), — Sarpi,  Discorso  (Opere,  IV.  21).— Concil.  Mediolanens.  ann.  1287,  c.  xi. 


PERSISTENCE    OF    HERESY.  239 

quisitor  of  the  Roman  province,  made  various  ineffectual  attempts 
to  prosecute  him,  and  in  1278  Nicholas  III.  sent  his  notary,  Master 
Benedict,  with  offers  of  pardon  in  return  for  obedience,  but  the 
heretics  were  obdurate,  and  Nicholas  was  forced  to  order  Orso  Or- 
sini,  Marshal  of  the  Church  in  Tuscany,  to  levy  troops  and  give 
Fra  Sinibaldo  armed  assistance  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  coerce 
them  to  penitence.  A  similar  enterprise  against  the  Viterbian 
noble,  Capello  di  Chia,  in  1260,  has  already  been  described  (Vol.  I. 
p.  342).  In  this  case  the  zeal  of  the  Viterbians,  who  levied  an  army 
to  assist  the  inquisitor,  must  have  had  some  political  motive,  for 
their  city  was  of  evil  repute  in  the  matter  of  heresy.  In  1265,  en- 
couraged by  the  assistance  of  Manfred,  the  people  had  risen  against 
the  Inquisition  and  had  only  been  subdued  after  a  bloody  fight  in 
which  two  friars  were  slain.  In  1279  Nicholas  expresses  his  re- 
gret that  although,  while  he  had  been  inquisitor-general,  he  had 
labored  strenuously  to  purge  Viterbo  of  heresy,  his  labors  had 
been  unsuccessful.  Heretics  were  still  concealed  there,  and  the 
whole  city  was  infected.  Fra  Sinibaldo  was  therefore  ordered  to 
go  thither  to  make  a  thorough  inquisition  of  the  place.* 

Earnest  and  unsparing  as  were  the  labors  of  the  inquisitors,  it 
seemed  impossible  to  eradicate  heresy.  Its  open  manifestations 
were  readily  suppressed  when  the  Ghibelline  chiefs  who  protected 
it  were  destroyed,  but  in  secret  it  still  flourished  and  maintained 
its  organization.  In  the  inquest  held  on  the  memory  of  Armanno 
Pongilupo  of  Ferrara  there  is  a  good  deal  of  testimony  which 
shows  not  only  the  activity  and  success  of  the  Inquisition  of  that 
city,  but  the  continued  existence  of  heresy  throughout  the  whole 
region.  There  are  allusions  to  numerous  heretics  in  Vicenza,  Ber- 
gamo, Rimini,  and  Verona.  In  the  latter  city  a  lady-in-waiting  of 
the  Marchesa  d'Este,  named  Spera,  was  burned  in  1270,  and  about 
the  same  time  there  were  two  Catharan  bishops  there,  Alberto  and 
Bonaventura  Belesmagra.  In  1273  Lorenzo  was  Bishop  of  Sermi- 
one,  and  Giovanni  da  Casaletto  was  Bishop  of  Mantua.  There  was 
a  secret  organization  extending  through  all  the  Italian  cities,  with 
visitors  smdfilii  majores  performing  their  rounds,  and  messengers 


•  RipoU  I.  241-2.— Wadding,  ann.  1258,  No.  3,  5;  aun.  1278,  No.  33;  ann. 
1279,  No.  29  ;  Regest.  Nich.  PP.  III.  No.  11.— Mag.  Bull.  Rom.  1. 118.— Martene 
Thesam-.  II.  191.— Raynald.  ann.  1278,  No.  78. 


240  ITALY. 

were  constantly  passing  to  and  fro,  elaborate  arrangements  being 
made  for  secreting  them.  Those  who  were  in  prison  were  kept 
supplied  with  necessaries  by  their  bretliren  at  large,  who  never 
knew  at  what  moment  they  might  be  incarcerated.  From  the 
sentences  of  Bernard  Gui  we  know  that  until  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury was  fairly  advanced  the  Cathari  of  Languedoc  still  looked  to 
Italy  as  to  a  haven  of  refuge ;  that  pilgrims  thither  had  no  trouble 
in  finding  their  fellow-believers  in  Lombardy,  in  Tuscany,  and  in 
the  kingdom  of  Sicily ;  that  when  the  French  churches  were  bro- 
ken up  those  who  sought  to  be  admitted  to  the  circle  of  the  Per- 
fect, or  to  renew  their  consolamentum,  resorted  to  Lombardy,  where 
they  could  always  find  ministers  authorized  to  perform  the  rites. 
When  Amiel  de  Perles  had  forfeited  his  ordination  a  conference 
was  held  in  which  it  was  determined  that  he  should  be  sent  with 
an  associate  to  "  the  Ancient  of  the  Heretics,"  Bernard  Audoyn  de 
Montaigu,  in  Lombardy  for  reconciliation ;  and  on  another  occa- 
sion we  hear  of  Bernard  himself  visiting  Toulouse  on  business  con- 
nected with  the  propagation  of  the  faith.* 

How  difficult,  indeed,  was  the  task  of  the  inquisitor  in  detect- 
ing heresy  under  the  mask  of  orthodoxy  is  curiously  illustrated  by 
the  case  of  Armanno  Pongilupo  himself.  In  Ferrara  heretics  were 
numerous.  Armanno's  parents  were  both  Cathari ;  he  was  a  "  con- 
solatus''''  and  his  wife  a  "  consolataP  In  1254  he  was  detected  and 
imprisoned ;  he  confessed  and  abjured,  and  was  released.  From 
his  Catharan  bishop  he  received  absolution  for  his  oath  of  abjura- 
tion, and  was  received  back  into  the  sect.  From  this  time  until 
his  death,  in  1269,  he  was  unceasingly  engaged  in  propagating 
Catharan  doctrines  and  in  ministering  to  the  wants  of  his  less 
fortunate  brethren  in  the  clutches  of  the  Inquisition,  which  was 
exceedingly  active  and  successful.  Meanwhile  he  preserved  an  ex- 
terior of  the  strictest  Catholicism ;  he  was  regular  in  attendance 
at  the  altar  and  confessional,  and  wholly  devoted  to  piety  and  good 
works.  He  died  in  the  odor  of  sanctity,  was  buried  in  the  cathe- 
dral, and  immediately  he  began  to  work  miracles.  He  was  soon 
reverenced  as  a  saint.  A  magnificent  tomb  arose  over  his  remains, 
an  altar  was  erected,  and,  as  the  miraculous  manifestations  of  his 


•  Muratori  Antiq.  Ital.  XII.  513-14,  521-3,  537-8.— Lib.  Sententt.  Inq.  Tolo- 
san.  pp.  2,  3,  12,  13,  32,  68,  75,  76,  81,  etc. 


ARMANNO    PONGILUPO.  241 

sanctity  multiplied,  his  chapel  became  filled  with  images  and  ex- 
votos,  to  the  no  little  profit  of  the  church  fortunate  enough  to 
possess  him.  Adored  as  a  saint  in  the  popular  cult,  there  came  a 
general  demand  for  his  canonization,  in  which  the  pride  of  the  city 
was  warmly  enlisted,  but  which  was  steadfastly  opposed  by  the  In- 
quisition. In  the  confessions  of  heretics  before  it  the  name  of 
Armanno  constantly  recurred  as  that  of  one  of  the  most  active  and 
trusted  members  of  the  sect,  and  ample  evidence  accumulated  as 
to  his  unrepentant  heresy.  Then  arose  a  curious  conflict,  waged 
on  both  sides  with  unremitting  vigor  for  thirty-two  years.  Hardly 
had  the  remains  been  committed  to  honorable  sepulture  in  the 
cathedral  when  Fra  Aldobrandini,  the  inquisitor  who  had  tried 
him  in  1254,  ordered  the  archpriest  and  chapter  to  exhume  and 
burn  the  corpse,  and  on  their  refusal  excommunicated  them  and 
placed  the  cathedral  under  interdict.  From  this  they  appealed  to 
Gregory  X.  and  set  to  work  to  gather  the  evidence  for  canoniza- 
tion. For  this  purpose  at  different  times  five  several  inquests  were 
held  and  superabundant  testimony  was  forthcoming  as  to  the  suc- 
cess with  which  his  suffrage  was  invoked,  how  the  sick  were  healed, 
the  blind  made  to  see,  and  the  halt  to  walk,  while  numerous  priests 
bore  emphatic  witness  to  his  pre-eminent  piety  during  life.  Greg- 
ory and  Aldobrandini  passed  away  leaving  the  matter  unsettled. 
Fra  Florio,  the  next  inquisitor,  sent  to  Rome  expressly  to  urge 
Honorius  TV.  to  come  to  a  decision,  but  Honorius  died  without  con- 
cluding the  matter.  On  the  accession  of  Boniface  VIII.,  in  1294, 
Fra  Guido  da  Vicenza,  then  inquisitor,  again  visited  Rome  to  pro- 
cure a  termination  of  the  affair.  Still  the  contending  forces  were 
too  evenly  balanced  for  either  to  win.  At  length  the  Lord  of  Fer- 
rara,  Azzo  X.,  interposed,  for  the  contest  between  the  inquisitor 
and  the  secular  clergy  seriously  threatened  the  peace  of  the  city. 
In  1300  Boniface  appointed  a  commission  to  make  a  thorough  in- 
vestigation, with  power  to  decide  finally,  and  in  1301  sentence  was 
rendered  to  the  effect  that  Armanno  had  died  a  relapsed  heretic ; 
that  no  one  should  beheve  him  to  be  anything  but  a  heretic ;  that 
his  bones  should  be  exhumed  and  burned,  the  sarcophagus  contain- 
ing them  and  the  altar  erected  before  it  be  destroyed ;  that  all 
statues,  images,  ex-votos,  and  other  offerings  set  up  in  his  honor  in 
the  cathedral  and  other  Ferrarese  churches  should  be  removed 
within  ten  days ;  and  that  all  his  property,  real  and  personal,  was 
XL— 16 


242  ITALY. 

confiscated  to  the  Inquisition,  any  sales  or  conveyances  made  of 
them  during  the  thirty-two  years  which  had  elapsed  since  his  death 
being  void.  Fra  Guido's  triumph  was  complete,  and  on  the  death 
of  the  Bishop  of  Ferrara,  in  1308,  he  was  rewarded  with  the  epis- 
copate. Extraordinary  as  this  case  may  seem,  it  was  not  unique. 
At  Brescia  a  heresiarch  named  Guido  Lacha  was  long  adored  as 
a  saint  by  the  people  until  the  imposture  Avas  detected  by  the  In- 
quisition, which  caused  his  bones  to  be  dug  up  and  burned.* 

This  was  the  period  of  the  greatest  power  and  activity  of  the 
Inquisition,  and  the  extent  of  its  perfected  organization  is  shown 
in  a  document  of  1302,  wherein  Fra  Guido  da  Tusis,  Inquisitor  of 
Romagnola,  publishes  in  the  communal  council  of  Rimini  the  names 
of  thirty-nine  officials  whom  he  has  selected  as  his  assistants.  The 
expenses  of  such  a  body  could  not  have  been  light,  and  to  defray 
them  there  must  have  been  a  constant  stream  of  fines  and  confis- 
cations pouring  into  the  inquisitorial  treasury,  showing  an  abun- 
dant harvest  of  heresy  and  active  work  in  its  suppression.f  It  was 
probably  between  1320  and  1330  that  was  produced  the  treatise  of 
Zanghino  Ugolini,  so  often  quoted  above.  Fra  Donato  da  Sant' 
Agata  had  been  appointed  Inquisitor  of  Romagnola,  and  the 
learned  jurisconsult  of  Rimini  drew  up  for  his  instruction  a  sum- 
mary of  the  rules  governing  inquisitorial  procedure,  which  is  one 
of  the  clearest  and  best  manuals  of  practice  that  we  possess. 

A  singular  episode  of  lenity  occurred  not  long  before,  which  is 
not  to  be  passed  over,  although  inexplicable  in  itself  and  unproduc- 
tive of  consequences.  Its  importance,  indeed,  lies  in  the  evidence 
which  it  affords  that  the  extreme  severity  of  the  laws  against  her- 
esy was  recognized  as  reaUy  unnecessary,  since  its  relaxation  in 
favor  of  a  single  community  as  a  matter  of  favor  would  otherwise 
have  been  a  crime  against  the  faith.  In  February,  1286,  Honorius 
TV.,  in  consideration  of  the  fidelity  manifested  by  the  people  of 


*  Muratori  Antiq.  Ital.  XII.  508-55.— Bern.  Guidon.  Vit.  Bonif.  VIII.  (S.  R.  I. 
III.  671-3). — Barbarano  de'  Mironi,  Hist.  Eccles.  di  Vicenza  II.  153. — Salimbene 
Chron.  aun.  1279,  p.  376.— Paramo,  p.  299. 

The  wide  attention  attracted  by  the  case  of  Armanno  is  shown  by  the  allu- 
sion to  it  in  the  German  chronicles. — Trithem  Chron.  Hirsaug.  ann.  1299. — Chron. 
Cornel.  Zanfliet  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  V.  143-3). 

t  Introductio  ad  Zanchini  Tract,  de  Haeres.  ed.  Campegii,  Romae,  1568.  (I 
owe  a  copy  of  this  document  to  the  kindness  of  Prof.  Felice  Tocco,  of  Florence.) 


PAPAL    INTERFERENCE.  243 

Tuscany  to  the  Eoman  Church,  and  especially  to  him  before  his 
elevation,  relieved  them  individually  and  universally  from  the 
penalties  for  heresy,  including  all  disabilities  decreed  by  his  pre- 
decessors and  by  Frederic  II.,  whether  incurred  by  their  own  er- 
rors or  by  those  of  their  ancestors.  Catholic  children  of  heretic 
parents  were  thus  ipso  facto  restored  to  all  privileges  and  were  no 
longer  liable  to  disinheritance.  In  the  case  of  existing  heretics  it 
was  necessary  for  them  to  appear  before  the  inquisitors  within  a 
time  to  be  named  by  the  latter— excepting  absentees  in  foreign 
lands,  to  whom  a  term  of  five  months  was  allowed — to  abjure  her- 
esy and  receive  penance,  which  was  to  be  a  secret  one,  involving 
neither  humiliation,  disabihty,  or  loss  of  property.  Cases  of  re- 
lapse, however,  were  to  be  treated  with  aU  the  rigor  of  the  law. 
As  this  bull  abrogated  in  Tuscany  the  constitutions  of  Frederic  II., 
it  required  confirmation  by  Eodolph  of  Hapsburg,  which  was  duly 
procured.  For  a  while  this  extraordinary  privilege  seems  to  have 
been  observed,  for,  in  1289,  Nicholas  IV.,  when  anathematizing 
heretics  and  stimulating  the  zeal  of  inquisitors  throughout  Genoa, 
Lombardy,  Eomagnola,  Naples,  and  Sicily,  pointedly  omits  Tuscany 
from  his  enumeration.  In  time,  however,  it  was  either  repealed  or 
disregarded.  No  case  could  come  more  completely  within  its  pur- 
view than  that  already  referred  to  of  Gherardo  of  Florence,  dying 
prior  to  1250  and  prosecuted  in  1313.  His  numerous  children  and 
grandchildren  were  good  CathoUcs,  and  yet  they  were  all  disin^ 
herited  and  subjected  to  the  canonical  disabihties.* 

Together  with  this  exhibition  of  papal  indulgence  may  be 
classed  the  occasional  interference  of  the  Holy  See  to  moderate 
the  rigor  of  the  canons,  or  to  repress  the  undue  zeal  of  an  inquisi- 
tor, when  the  sufferer  had  influence  or  money  enough  to  attract 
the  papal  attention.  It  is  pleasant  to  record  three  instances  of 
this  kind  on  the  part  of  the  despotic  Boniface  VIII.,  when,  in  1297, 
he  declared  that  Eainerio  Gatti,  a  noble  of  Viterbo,  and  his  sons 
had  been  prosecuted  by  the  inquisitors  on  perjured  testimony, 
wherefore  the  process  was  to  be  annulled  and  the  accused  and 
their  heirs  relieved  from  all  stain  of  heresy ;  when,  in  1298,  he  or- 
dered the  Inquisition  to  restore  to  the  innocent  children  of  a  her- 


•  Cod.  Epist.  Rodulphi  I.  Lipsige,  1807,  pp.  266-9.— Wadding,  ann.  1289,  No. 
— Lami,  Antichita  Toscane,  pp.  497,  536-7. 


244  ITALY. 

etic  the  property  confiscated  by  Fra  Andrea  the  inquisitor,  and 
when  he  ordered  Fra  Adamo  da  Como,  the  inquisitor  of  the  Ro- 
man province,  to  desist  from  molesting  Giovanni  Ferraloco,  a  cit- 
izen of  Orvieto,  whom  his  predecessors,  Angelo  da  Rieti  and  Leo- 
nardo da  Tivoli,  had  declared  absolved  from  heresy.  This  Fra 
Adamo  apparently  rendered  his  oflBce  a  terror  to  the  innocent. 
May  8, 1293,  we  find  him  compelling  Pierre  d'Aragon,  a  gentleman 
of  Carcassonne  who  chanced  to  be  in  Rome,  to  give  him  security 
in  the  heavy  sum  of  one  hundred  marks  to  present  himself  within 
three  months  to  the  Inquisition  of  Carcassonne  and  obey  its  man- 
dates. Pierre  accordingly  appeared  before  Bertrand  de  Clermont 
on  June  19,  and  was  closely  examined,  and  then  again  on  August 
16,  but  nothing  was  discovered  against  him.  Whether  or  not  he 
recovered  his  one  hundred  marks  from  Fra  Adamo  does  not  ap- 
pear, but  the  incident  affords  an  illustration  at  once  of  the  per- 
fected organization  of  the  Holy  Office,  and  of  the  dangers  which 
surrounded  travellers  in  the  countries  where  it  flourished.* 

The  Inquisition  was  thus  thoroughly  estabUshed  and  at  work 
in  northern  and  central  Italy,  and  heresy  was  gradually  disap- 
pearing before  its  remorseless  and  incessant  energy.  To  escape  it 
many  had  fled  to  Sardinia,  but  in  1258  that  island  was  added  to 
the  inquisitorial  province  of  Tuscany,  and  inquisitors  were  sent 
thither  to  track  the  fugitives  in  their  retreats.f  There  were  two 
regions,  however,  Venice  and  the  Two  Sicilies,  which  thus  far  we 
have  not  considered,  as  they  were  in  some  sort  independent  of  the 
movement  which  we  have  traced  in  the  rest  of  the  Peninsula. 

Naples,  like  the  other  portions  of  southern  Europe,  had  been 
exposed  to  the  infection  of  heresy.  At  an  early  period  mission- 
aries from  Bulgaria  had  penetrated  the  passes  of  the  southern  Ap- 
ennines, and,  in  that  motley  population  of  Greek  and  Saracen  and 
Norman,  proselytes  had  not  been  lacking.  The  Norman  kings, 
usually  at  enmity  with  the  Holy  See,  had  not  cared  to  inquire  too 
closely  into  the  orthodoxy  of  their  subjects,  and  had  they  done 
so  the  independence  of  the  feudal  baronage  would  have  rendered 


*  Faucon,  Registres  de  Boniface  VIII.  No.  1673,  p.  632. — Wadding,  ann. 
1298,  No.  3.— Arch,  de  I'Inq.  de  Care.  (Doat,  XXVI.  147). 
+  Wadding,  ann.  1285,  No.  9,  10. 


NAPLES    AND    SICILY.  245 

minute  perquisition  by  no  means  easy.  The  allusions  of  the  Ab- 
bot Joachim  of  Flora  to  the  Cathari  indicate  that  their  existence 
and  doctrines  were  familiar  facts  in  Calabria,  though  as  Kainerio 
makes  no  allusion  to  any  Catharan  church  in  Italy  south  of  Flor- 
ence it  is  presumable  that  the  sectaries  were  widely  scattered  and 
unorganized.  In  1235,  when  the  Dominican  convent  in  Naples 
was  broken  into  by  a  mob  and  several  of  the  friars  were  griev- 
ously wounded,  Gregory  IX,  attributed  the  violence  to  friends  of 
heretics.* 

Frederic  II.,  however  much  at  times  his  poHcy  might  lead 
him  to  proclaim  ferocious  edicts  of  persecution,  and  even  spas- 
modically to  enforce  them,  had  no  convictions  of  his  own  to  ren- 
der him  persistent  in  persecution,  and  his  lifelong  contest  ^^^th  the 
papacy  gave  him,  secretly  at  least,  a  fellow-feeling  with  all  who 
resisted  the  supremacy  of  the  Holy  See,  whether  in  temporal  or 
spiritual  concerns.  Occasional  attacks  such  as  that  under  the  au- 
spices of  the  Archbishop  of  Reggio,  in  1231,  or  the  fonn  of  secular 
inquisition  which  he  instituted  in  1233,  had  little  permanent  effect. 
Cathari  driven  from  Languedoc,  who  perhaps  found  even  Lom- 
bardy  insecure,  were  tolerably  sure  of  refuge  in  the  wild  and  se- 
cluded vaUeys  of  Calabria  and  the  Abruzzi,  lying  aside  from  the 
great  routes  of  travel.  The  domination  in  Naples  of  Innocent  IV. 
was  too  brief  for  the  organization  of  any  systematized  persecution, 
and  when  Manfred  reconquered  the  kingdom,  although  he  seems 
to  have  felt  his  position  too  precarious  to  risk  open  toleration,  and, 
under  pressure  from  Jayme  of  Aragon,  he  ordered  Bishop  Vivian 
of  Toulouse  and  his  disciples,  who  had  settled  in  Apulia,  to  leave 
his  dominions,  yet  he  went  no  further  in  active  measures  of  repres- 
sion, f 

Charles  of  Anjou  came  as  a  crusader  and  as  the  champion  of 
the  Church.  Scarce  was  his  undisputed  domination  assured  by 
the  execution  of  Conradin,  October  29,  1268,  than  we  see  him 
zealously  employed  in  establishing  the  Inquisition  throughout  the 
kingdom.  Numerous  royal  letters  of  1269  show  it  actively  at 
work,  and  manifest  the  solicitude  of  the  king  that  the  stipends  and 

*  Tocco,  L'Eresia  nel  Medio  Evo,  p.  403. — Reiiierii  Sunima  (Mailene  Thesaur. 
V.  1767).— Ripoll  I.  74. 

t  Raynald.  ann.  1231,  No.  19. —Rich,  de  S.  German.  Chron.  ann.  1233.— 
Qiannone,  1st.  Civ.  di  Napoli,  Lib.  xvii.  c.  6,  Lib.  xix.  c.  5. — Vaissette,  IV.  17. 


246  ITALY. 

the  expenses  of  the  inquisitors  should  be  provided  for,  and  that 
every  assistance  should  be  rendered  by  the  pubhc  officials.  Each 
inquisitor  was  furnished  with  a  letter  which  placed  all  the  forces 
of  the  State  at  his  unreserved  command.  The  Neapolitan  Inquisi- 
tion was  fully  manned.  There  was  one  inquisitor  for  Bari  and  the 
CajDitanata,  one  for  Otranto,  and  one  for  the  Terra  di  Lavoro  and 
the  Abruzzi;  and  in  1271  one  was  added  for  Calabria  and  one  for 
Sicily.  Most  of  them  were  Dominicans,  but  we  meet  with  at  least 
one  Franciscan,  Fra  Benvenuto.  Yet  no  buildings  or  prisons  seem 
to  have  been  provided  for  them.  The  royal  jails  were  placed  at 
their  disposal,  and  the  keepers  were  instructed  to  torture  prisoners 
on  requisition  from  the  inquisitors.  Even  as  late  as  1305  this 
arrangement  appears  to  be  in  force.* 

Charles's  zeal  did  not  confine  itself  to  thus  organizing  and  pro- 
moting the  Inquisition.  He  supplemented  its  labors  by  instituting 
raids  on  heretics  conducted  under  his  own  auspices.  Thus,  although 
there  was  an  inquisitor  for  the  Abruzzi,  we  find  him,  December 
13,  1269,  sending  thither  the  Cavaliere  Berardo  da  Eajano  with 
instructions  to  investigate  and  seize  heretics  and  their  fautors. 
The  utmost  diligence  was  enjoined  on  him,  and  the  local  officials 
were  ordered  to  assist  him  in  every  way,  but  there  is  no  allusion 
to  his  mission  being  in  co-operation  with  the  inquisitor.  Another 
significant  manifestation  of  Charles's  devotion  is  seen  in  his  found- 
ing, in  1274:,  and  richly  endowing  for  the  Dominicans  the  splendid 
church  of  San  Piero  Martire  in  Naples,  and  stimulating  his  nobles 
to  follow  his  example  in  showering  wealth  upon  it.  Yet  fifty 
years  afterwards,  in  1324,  the  building  was  stiU  incomplete  for 
lack  of  funds,  when  King  Eobert  aided  the  construction  with  fifty 
ounces  of  gold,  which  he  ordered  the  inquisitors  to  pay  out  of  the 
royal  third  of  the  confiscations  coming  into  their  hands.  This  is 
interesting  as  showing  how,  in  Naples,  the  profitable  side  of  per- 
secution was  whoUy  under  the  control  of  the  Holy  Office,  f 

*  Arcliivio  di  Napoli,  MSS.  Chioccarello  T.  VIII.— lb.  Regist.  3  Lett.  A,  fol. 
64;  Reg.  4  Lett.  B,  fol.  47;  Reg.  5  Lett.  C,  fol.  234 ;  Reg.  6  Lett.  D,  fol.  35,  39, 
174;  Reg.  10  Lett.  B.  fol.  6,  7,  96;  Reg.  11  Lett.  C,fol.  40;  Reg.  13  Lett.  A,  fol. 
212  ;  Reg.  113  Lett.  A,  fol.  385 ;  Reg.  154  Lett.  C,  fol.  81 ;  Reg.  167  Lett.  A,  fol. 
324. 

t  Archivio  di  Napoli,  Reg.  6  Lett.  D,  fol.  135;  Reg.  253  Lett.  A,  fol.  63.— 
Giannone,  1st.  Civ.  di  Napoli  Lib.  xix.  c.  5. 


NAPLES    AND    SICILY.  247 

Few  details  have  been  preserved  to  us  of  the  activity  of  the 
Inquisition  in  Naples.  "We  know  that  heretics  continued  to  exist 
there,  but  the  wild  and  mountainous  character  of  much  of  the 
country  doubtless  afforded  them  abundant  opportunities  of  safe 
asylum.  Already,  in  August,  1269,  a  letter  of  Charles  ordering  the 
seizure  of  sixty -eight  heretics  designated  by  Fra  Benvenuto  shows 
that  the  work  was  being  energetically  prosecuted,  and  in  another 
letter  of  March  14,  1270,  there  is  an  allusion  to  three  others  whom 
Fra  Matteo  di  Castellamare  had  recently  caused  to  be  burned  in 
Benevento.  The  inquisitors  of  Languedoc,  moreover,  made  haste, 
as  early  as  1269,  to  send  agents  to  Naples  to  hunt  the  refugees 
whom  their  severity  had  driven  there,  and  Charles  ordered  every 
assistance  to  be  rendered  to  them,  which,  perhaps,  explains  the 
success  of  Fra  Benvenuto,  Yet  the  perpetual  necessity  for  royal 
interposition  leads  to  the  inference  that  the  Inquisition  was  not 
nearly  so  effective  in  Naples  as  it  proved  in  Languedoc  and  Lom- 
bardy.  The  royal  authority  seems  to  be  required  at  every  turn, 
partly  because  the  king  allowed  httle  independent  initiative  to  the 
inquisitors,  and  partly,  perhaps,  because  the  local  officials  did  not 
lend  as  hearty  a  co-operation  as  they  might  have  done.  Thus  the 
Neapolitan  Inquisition,  even  under  the  Angevines,  seems  never  to 
have  attained  the  compact  and  effective  organization  of  which  we 
have  seen  the  results  elsewhere,  though  Charles  II.  was  an  eager 
persecutor  who  stimulated  the  zeal  of  his  inquisitors,  and  his  son 
Robert  earned  the  name  of  the  Pious.  In  1305  we  shaU  see  Fra 
Tommaso  di  Aversa  active  in  persecuting  the  Spiritual  Franciscans, 
and  in  1311,  King  Robert,  at  the  instance  of  Fra  Matteo  da  Ponza, 
ordered  that  all  newly  converted  Jews  should  live  scattered  among 
Christians,  so  as  not  to  be  tempted  back  to  Judaism.* 

The  ineffectiveness  of  the  Neapolitan  Inquisition  is  seen  in  the 
comparative  security  which  attended  an  organized  immigration  of 
Waldenses  from  the  vaUeys  of  the  Cottian  Alps.  It  was  probably 
about  1315  that  Zanino  del  Poggio,  a  Milanese  noble,  led  forth  the 
first  band  from  Savoy,  under  specified  guarantees  of  lands  and 
privileges,  after  the  intending  emigrants  had  received  the  report 
of  deputies  sent  in  advance  to  survey  the  promised  refuge.     Fresh 


*  Archivio  di  Napoli,  Regist.  3  Lett.  A,  fol.  64;   Regist.  4  Lett.  B,  fol.  47- 
Reg.  9  Lett.  C,  fol.  39.— MSS.  Chioccarello,  T.  VIU. 


248  ITALY. 

bands  came  to  join  them  and  a  group  of  villages  sprang  up— 
Guardia  Piemontese,  or  Borgo  degli  Oltremontani,  Argentina,  La 
Kocca,  Yaccarizzo,  and  San  Vincenzo  in  Calabria,  while  in  Apulia 
there  were  Monteleone,  Montanto,  Faito,  La  Cella,  and  Matta. 
These  were  regularly  visited  by  the  "  barbes,"  or  missionary  pas- 
tors, who  spent  their  lives  wandering  around  among  the  scattered 
churches,  administering  the  consolations  of  religion  and  watching 
over  the  purity  of  the  faith.  The  fierce  persecutions  conducted 
by  Francois  Borel  led  to  further  emigration  on  an  enlarged  scale, 
which  naturally  sought  the  NeapoUtan  territories  as  a  haven  of 
rest,  until  Apulia  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  headquarters  of  the 
sect.  That  considerable  bodies  of  heretics  could  thus  establish 
themselves  and  flourish  argues  great  negligence  on  the  part  of  the 
Inquisition.  In  fact,  its  recognized  inefficiency  was  shown  as  early 
as  1326,  when  John  XXII.  was  in  pursuit  of  some  FraticeUi  who 
had  fled  to  Calabria ;  instead  of  calling  upon  the  inquisitors  he  ap- 
plied to  King  Robert  and  to  the  Duke  of  Calabria  to  capture  them 
and  hand  them  over  to  the  episcopal  tribunals.* 

"When,  as  the  result  of  the  Sicilian  Vespers  in  1282,  the  Island 
of  Sicily  passed  into  the  hands  of  Pedro  III.  of  Aragon,  it  was 
placed  in  the  bitterest  antagonism  towards  the  Holy  See,  and  no 
active  persecution  is  to  be  looked  for.  In  fact,  in  1285,  Martin 
rV.,  in  ordering  a  crusade  preached  against  Pedro,  gives  as  one  of 
the  four  reasons  alleged  in  justification  that  heresy  was  multiply- 
ing in  the  island,  and  that  inquisitors  were  prevented  from  visit- 
ing it.  It  was  not  till  1302  that  Boniface  YIII.  was  brought  to 
accept  the  accomplished  fact,  and  to  acknowledge  Frederic  of  Ara- 
gon as  King  of  Trinacria.  The  Inquisition  soon  followed.  In 
1304  we  find  Benedict  XL  ordering  Frederic  to  receive  and  give 
aU  due  assistance  to  Fra  Tommaso  di  Aversa  the  inquisitor,  and  aU 
other  inquisitors  who  may  be  sent  thither.     The  pope,  however, 


*  Lombard,  Jean  Louis  Paschal  et  les  Martyrs  de  Calabre,  Geneve,  1881,  pp. 
2^32. — Filippo  de  Boni,  L'lnquisizione  e  i  Calabro-Valdesi,  Milano,  1864,  pp.  73- 
77. — Perrin,  Hist,  des  Vaudois,  Liv.  ir.  ch.  7.— Comba,  Hist,  des  Vaudois  d'ltalie, 
1. 128, 181-6, 190. — Rorengo,  Memorie  Historiche,  Torino,  1649,  pp.  77  sqq. — Mar- 
tini Append,  ad  Mosheira  de  Beghardis,  p.  638. 

Vegezzi-Ruscalla  (Rivista  Contemporanea,  1862)  has  shown  the  identity  of 
the  dialects  of  the  Calabrian  Guardia  and  of  the  Val  d'Angrogna,  proving  the 
reality  of  the  emigration. 


VENICE.  249 

did  not  erect  it  into  a  separate  tribunal,  but  instructed  the  Holy 
Office  of  the  mainland  that  its  jurisdiction  extended  over  both 
sides  of  the  Faro.  Yet  the  introduction  of  the  Inquisition  in  the 
island  was  nominal  rather  than  real  except,  as  we  shall  see,  with 
regard  to  the  Templars,  and  Sicily  long  remained  a  safe  refuge 
for  the  persecuted  Fraticelh.  Doubtless  Arnaldo  de  Yilanova  con- 
tributed to  this  by  the  picture  which  he  presented  to  Frederic  of 
the  inquisitors  of  the  day.  They  were  a  diaboHcal  pest,  traffick- 
ing in  their  offices,  converting  themselves  into  demons,  never  edify- 
ing the  faithful,  but  rather  making  them  infidels,  as  they  aban- 
doned themselves  to  hatred,  greed,  and  lust,  with  no  one  to  con- 
demn them  or  to  repress  their  fury.  When,  in  1328,  the  Archbishop 
of  Palermo  arrested  a  Fraticello,  appeal  was  at  once  made  to 
Frederic,  and  John  XXII.  wrote  to  the  archbishop  urgently  com- 
manding that  the  sect  be  extirpated,  showing  apparently  that 
there  was  no  Inquisition  then  at  work.* 

The  Eepublic  of  Venice  was  always  a  law  unto  itself.  Though 
forming  part  of  the  March  of  Treviso,  its  predominant  interests  in 
the  thirteenth  century  lay  to  the  east  of  the  Adriatic,  and  it  did 
not  become  a  formidable  power  on  the  mainland  until  the  acqui- 
sition of  Treviso  in  1339.  That  of  Padua,  in  1405,  followed  by 
Verona,  Vicenza,  Feltre,  Belluno,  and  Brescia,  greatly  increased  its 
strength,  and  in  1448  it  wrenched  Bergamo  from  the  dukes  of 
Milan.  Thus  its  policy  with  regard  to  the  Inquisition  eventually 
controlled  the  whole  of  the  March  of  Treviso,  and  a  considerable 
portion  of  Lombardy. 

That  poUcy  held  at  bay  in  all  things  the  pretensions  of  the 
Holy  See,  and  looked  with  extreme  suspicion  on  whatever  might 
give  the  popes  an  excuse  for  interference  with  either  the  domestic 
poUcy  or  the  foreign  enterprises  of  the  Signoria.  Fairly  orthodox, 
though  not  bigoted,  Venice  held  aloof  from  the  strife  between 
Guelf  and  Ghibelline,  and  was  not  involved  in  the  anathemas  lav- 
ished upon  Ezzelin  da  Romano.  Venice,  in  fact,  was  the  ba^is  of 
operations  in  the  crusade  against  him,  and  it  was  a  Venetian  who 


•  Salimbene,  p.  330.— Grandjean,  Registres  de  Benoit  XI.  No.  834-5.— Pelayo 
HeterodoxosEspafioles,  I.  730.— LaMantia,  Origine  e  Vicende  dell'  Inquisizioue 
in  Sicilia,  Torino,  1886,  p.  12. 


260  ITALY. 

led  the  expedition  up  the  Brenta  which  captured  Padua.  Yet  the 
repubUc  made  no  haste  to  join  in  the  movement  for  the  extermi- 
nation of  heresy  so  energetically  pushed  by  Gregory  IX.  and  his 
successors.  The  Constitutions  of  Frederic  II.  were  never  inscribed 
in  its  statute-books.  In  1229  the  official  oath  of  the  Doge  Giacopo 
Tiepoli,  which,  as  is  customary,  contains  the  criminal  code  of  the 
day,  embodies  no  allusion  to  heresy  or  its  suppression,  and  the 
same  is  true  of  the  criminal  statute  of  1232  published  by  the  same 
doge.* 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  Inquisition  was  developed  with 
all  the  aggressive  energy  of  which  Gregory  IX.  was  capable,  but 
it  found  no  foothold  in  Venice.  Yet  the  duty  to  punish  heresy 
was  at  length  recognized,  though  the  civil  authorities  would  abate 
no  jot  of  their  right  to  control  the  administration  of  justice  in 
spiritual  as  well  as  in  temporal  matters.  The  official  oath  taken 
in  1249  by  the  Doge  Marino  Morosini  contains  a  promise  that  cer- 
tain upright  and  discreet  and  Catholic  men  shall  be  appointed, 
with  the  advice  of  the  Council,  to  inquire  after  heretics.  All 
heretics,  moreover,  who  shall  be  deUvered  to  the  secular  arm  by 
the  Archbishop  of  Grado  or  other  bishops  of  the  Yenetian  terri- 
tories shall  be  duly  burned,  under  the  advice  of  the  Council,  or  of 
a  majority  of  its  members.  Thus  a  kind  of  secular  Inquisition 
was  established  to  search  after  heretics.  The  ancient  jm-isdiction 
of  the  episcopal  courts  was  alone  recognized,  but  the  judgment 
of  the  bishops  was  subject  to  revision  by  the  Council  before  the 
death-penalty  could  be  inflicted,  f 

This  could  by  no  means  be  satisfactory  to  the  papacy,  and 
when  the  death  of  Frederic  II.  led  to  an  immediate  effort  to  ex- 
tend the  Inquisition  through  the  territories  hitherto  closed  to  it, 
Venice  was  not  forgotten.  By  a  bull  of  June  11, 1251,  Innocent 
IV.  ordered  the  Frati  Vicenzo  of  Milan,  and  Giovanni  of  VerceUi, 
to  proceed  to  Venice  and  persecute  heretics  there  with  the  same 
powers  as  those  exercised  by  inquisitors  elsewhere  in  Lombardy. 
Whether  the  good  friars  made  the  attempt  to  exercise  these  pow- 
ers is  questionable ;  if  they  did  so,  their  ill-success  is  unquestion- 
able.   There  is  a  document  of  1256  which  contains  an  oath  to  pur- 


*  Sarpi,  Discorso  (Opere,  Ed.  Helmstadt,  IV.  20). 

+  Archivio  Generale  di  Venezia,  Codice  ex  Brera,  No.  277,  Carte  5. 


VENICE.  251 

sue  heretics  and  to  denounce  them,  not  to  the  ecclesiastical  tri- 
bunals, but  to  the  doge  or  to  the  magistrates — an  oath  presumabl}'' 
administered  to  the  secular  inquisitors  established  in  124-9,  The 
same  document  contains  a  clause  which  indicates  that  the  death- 
penalty  threatened  in  1219  had  already  been  abrogated.  It  classes 
Cathari  and  usurers  together  :  it  alludes  to  the  punishment  decreed 
for  those  convicted  of  relapse  into  either  sin,  and  shows  that  this 
was  not  capital,  by  providing  that  if  the  convict  is  a  foreigner  he 
shaU  be  banished  from  Venice,  but  if  a  citizen  he  shall  not  be  ban- 
ished. Yet  the  death-penalty  seems  to  have  been  restored  soon 
afterwards,  for,  in  1275,  the  oath  of  Giacomo  Contarini  is  the  same 
as  that  of  1249,  with  the  unimportant  addition  that  the  judgment 
of  an  episcopal  vicar  during  the  vacancy  of  a  see  can  be  substi- 
tuted for  that  of  a  bishop.* 

As  the  pressure  of  the  Inquisition  extended  throughout  Lom- 
bardy  and  the  Marches,  the  persecuted  heretics  naturally  sought  a 
refuge  in  Venetian  territory,  where  supervision  was  so  much  more 
neghgent.  It  was  in  vain  that  about  1286  Fra  Fihppo  of  Mantua, 
the  Inquisitor  of  Treviso,  was  sent  by  Honorius  IV.  with  a  smn- 
mons  to  the  republic  to  inscribe  in  its  laws  the  constitutions 
against  heresy  of  Frederic  and  of  the  popes.  Although  the  ex- 
ample of  the  other  cities  of  the  Marca  Trivigiana  was  urged,  and 
Venice  was  repeatedly  required  to  do  the  same,  obedience  was  per- 
sistently refused.  At  length,  in  1288,  Nicholas  IV.  lost  patience 
with  this  persistent  contumacy.  He  peremptorily  ordered  the 
Signoria  to  adopt  the  imperial  and  papal  laws,  and  commanded 
that  the  doge  should  swear  not  only  not  to  impede  the  Inquisitor 
of  Treviso  in  his  duties,  but  to  assist  him.  In  default  of  obedience 
he  threatened  to  proceed  against  the  city  both  spiritually  and  tem- 
porally, f 

The  position  of  the  republic  was  already  indefensible  under 
the  public  law  of  the  period.  It  was  so  administering  its  own 
laws  as  to  afford  an  asylum  to  a  class  universally  proscribed,  and 
it  was  refusing  to  allow  the  Church  to  apply  the  only  remedy 
deemed  appropriate  to  this  crying  evil.     It  therefore  yielded  to 


*  Ripoll  VII.  25.— Arch,  di  Venez.  Miscellanea,  Codice  No.  133,  p.  121 ;  Cod. 
ex  Brera,  No.  277,  Carte  5. 

t  Albizio,  Risposta  al  P.  Paolo  Sarpi,  pp.  20-3.— Wadding,  anu.  1288,  No.  23. 


252  ITALY. 

the  inevitable,  but  in  a  manner  to  preserve  its  own  autonomy  and 
independence.  It  absolutely  refused  to  incorporate  in  its  own 
statutes  the  papal  and  imperial  lavrs,  but,  August  4,  1289,  it  em- 
powered the  doge,  Giovanni  Dandolo,  to  give  assistance  to  the 
inquisitor,  when  called  upon,  without  referring  each  case  to  the 
Senate.  A  further  wise  provision  decreed  that  all  fines  and  con- 
fiscations should  inure  to  the  State,  which  in  turn  undertook  to 
defray  the  expenses  of  the  Holy  Office.  These  were  not  light,  as, 
in  addition  to  the  cost  of  making  arrests  and  maintaining  prisoners, 
the  inquisitor  received  the  hberal  salary  of  twelve  ducats  a  month. 
For  this  purpose  the  proceeds  of  the  corn-tax  were  set  aside,  and 
the  money  was  deposited  with  the  Provveditore  delle  Yiare,  who 
disbursed  it  on  the  requisition  of  the  inquisitor.  This  compromise 
w^as  accepted  by  Nicholas  TV.,  August  28, 1288,  and  was  duly  em- 
bodied in  the  official  oath  of  the  next  doge,  Piero  Gradenigo. 
Thus,  while  the  inquisitor  had  full  opportunity  of  suppressing 
heresy,  the  temptation  to  abuse  his  office  for  purposes  of  extor- 
tion was  reduced  to  a  minimum,  and  the  State,  by  retaining  in  its 
hands  all  the  financial  portion  of  the  business,  was  able  at  any 
time  to  exercise  control.* 

The  Inquisition  was  unaccustomed  to  submit  to  control,  and 
soon  chafed  under  these  hmitations.  Already,  in  1292,  Nicholas 
TV.  complained  to  Piero  Gradenigo  that  the  terms  of  the  agree- 
ment were  not  carried  out.  The  inquisitors,  Bonagiunta  of  Man- 
tua and  Giuliano  of  Padua,  reported  that  the  papal  and  imperial 
laws  against  heresy  were  not  enforced,  and  that  under  the  ar- 
rangement for  expenditures  they  were  unable  to  employ  a  force 
of  familiars  sufficient  to  detect  and  seize  the  heretics.  Heresy 
consequently,  they  said,  continued  to  flourish  in  Venetian  territory, 
for  all  of  which  Nicholas  bitterly  scolded  the  doge,  and  demanded 
such  changes  as  should  remove  these  scandals,  but  without  effect. 
The  Signoria,  apparently,  had  not  seen  fit  to  abolish  the  office  of 
secular  inquisitors  provided  by  the  legislation  of  1249.  These  were 
three  in  number,  and  were  known  as  the  "  tre  Savi  delV  eresia,^^ 
or  "  assistenti."     It  was  hardly  possible  that  a  duplicate  organiza- 


*  Albizio,  op.  cit.  pp.  24-7. — Wadding,  ann.  1289,  No.  15. — Sarpi,  op.  cit.  p. 
31. — Arch,  di  Venez.  Codice  ex  Brera,  No.  277,  Carte  41 ;  Maggior  Consiglio, 
Carte  67. 


DECADENCE    OF    THE    INQUISITION.  253 

tion  such  as  this  could  work  without  clashing.  The  situation  be- 
came intolerable,  and  in  1301  Era  Antonio,  the  Inquisitor  of  Tre- 
viso,  resolved  to  put  an  end  to  it.  He  notified  the  three  Savi,  Tom- 
maso  Yiaro,  Marino  Zorzi,  and  Lorenzo  Segico,  to  recognize  no 
superior  save  himself.  Their  submission  not  being  forthcoming, 
he  proceeded  to  Venice,  and  addressed  to  the  Doge  Gradenigo  a 
monition  ordering  him,  under  pain  of  excommunication,  to  swear 
to  obey  all  the  papal  constitutions  on  heresy.  Gradenigo  refused, 
alleging  that  this  would  be  a  violation  of  his  oath  of  ofiice ;  the 
inquisitor  withdrew  his  monition,  and  matters  remained  as  before. 
Whatever  hopes  had  been  entertained  that  the  entering  wedge 
would  enable  the  Inquisition  to  establish  itseK  without  restriction 
were  foiled  by  the  steadfastness  of  the  republic.  The  three  Savi 
continued  their  functions  and,  perhaps,  even  enlarged  them ;  it  had 
become  customary  for  them  to  be  selected  from  among  the  sena- 
tors, and  they  acted  in  conjunction  with  the  inquisitor  in  all  cases 
coming  within  his  jurisdiction.  As  Venice  extended  her  conquests 
on  the  mainland,  in  all  cities  under  her  domination  the  rettori  or 
governors  performed  this  function,  and  their  participation  was 
required  in  all  prosecutions  for  heresy,  not  only  by  the  inquisitor^ 
but  by  the  bishops.* 

In  Italy,  as  in  France,  the  history  of  the  Inquisition  during 
the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  is  one  of  decadence.  It  is 
true  that  in  Italy  it  had  not  to  contend  with  the  consohdation  of 
power  in  the  hands  of  a  monarch,  but  the  Captivity  of  Avignon 
and  the  debasement  of  the  papacy  under  the  influence  of  the 
French  court,  co-operating  with  the  rise  of  the  cities  in  wealth 
and  culture,  conduced  to  the  same  result ;  while  the  Great  Schism, 
followed  by  the  Councils  of  Constance  and  Basle,  tended  to  eman- 
cipate the  minds  of  men  and  foster  independence.  During  the 
fourteenth  century  much  of  the  inquisitorial  activity  was  devoted 
to  the  new  heresy  of  the  FraticelU,  which  will  be  referred  to  here- 
after when  we  come  to  consider  that  remarkable  religious  move- 
ment.    That  movement,  indeed,  was  the  chief  exception  to  the 


•  Wadding,  ann.  1292,  No.  5. — Albanese,  L'Inquisizione  nella  Repubblica  di 
Venezia,  1875,  pp.  52-3.— Sarpi,  loc.  cit.— Cecchetti,  La  Repubblica  di  Venezia  e 
la  Corte  di  Roma,  Venezia,  1874, 1.  18. 


254  ITALY. 

decay  in  spiritual  enthiisiasra  which  diminished  at  once  the  vener- 
ation which  the  Inquisition  inspired  and  the  opposition  of  hetero- 
doxy which  constituted  its  raison  d^etre.  As  heretics  grew  fewer 
and  poorer  its  usefulness  decreased,  its  means  of  impressing  the 
popular  imagination  disappeared,  and  its  rewards  gre\7  less  and 
less. 

As  regards  the  Cathari,  the  Inquisition  had  done  its  work  too 
well.  Unceasing  and  unsparing  repression  gradually  annihilated 
the  sect  which,  during  the  first  half  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
seemed  almost  able  to  dispute  with  Rome  the  possession  of  Italy 
on  equal  terms.  Yet  when  we  see  that  the  Waldenses,  exposed 
to  the  same  merciless  rigor,  were  not  extinguished,  we  recognize 
that  some  other  factor  besides  mere  persecution  was  at  work  to 
obliterate  a  belief  which  once  enjoyed  so  potent  an  influence  on 
the  human  mind  that  thousands  for  its  sake  went  jojrfully  to  a 
dreadful  death.  The  secret  must  be  looked  for  in  the  hopeless 
pessimism  of  the  faith  itself.  There  was  in  it  nothing  to  encour- 
age and  strengthen  man  in  the  battle  of  life.  Manes  had  robbed 
the  elder  Mazdeism  of  its  vitaHty  when  he  assigned  to  the  Evil 
Principle  complete  dominion  over  Nature  and  the  visible  universe, 
and  when  he  adopted  the  Sankhya  philosophy,  which  teaches  that 
existence  is  an  evil,  while  death  is  an  emancipation  for  those  who 
have  earned  spiritual  immortality,  and  a  mere  renewal  of  the 
same  hated  existence  for  all  who  have  not  risen  to  the  height  of 
the  austerest  maceration.  As  civilization  slowly  advanced,  as  the 
midnight  of  the  Dark  Ages  began  to  yield  to  the  approaching 
dawn  of  modern  ideas,  as  the  hopelessness  of  humanity  grew  less 
abject,  the  Manichsean  theory  grew  less  attractive.  The  world 
was  gradually  awakening  to  new  aims  and  new  possibilities ;  it 
was  outgrowing  the  dreary  philosophy  of  pessimism,  and  was  un- 
consciously preparing  for  the  yet  unknown  future  in  which  man 
was  to  regard  Nature  not  as  an  enemy,  but  as  a  teacher.  Catha- 
rism  had  no  possibility  of  development,  and  in  that  lay  its  doom. 

The  simple  and  earnest  faith  of  the  Waldenses,  on  the  other 
hand,  inculcated  helpfulness  and  hopefulness,  patience  under  trib- 
ulation, and  an  abiding  trust  in  the  watchful  care  of  the  Heavenly 
Father.  The  arduous  toil  of  the  artisan  or  husbandman  was 
blessed  in  the  consciousness  of  the  performance  of  a  duty.  The 
virtues  which  form  the  basis  of  all  Christian  society — industry, 


DECLINE    OF    CATHARISM.  255 

charity,  self-abnegation,  sobriety,  chastity,  thrift — were  stimulated 
and  cultivated,  and  man  was  taught  that  his  fate,  here  and  here- 
after, depended  on  himself,  and  not  on  the  ministration  or  media- 
tion of  his  fellow-creatures,  ahve  or  dead.  It  was  a  faith  which 
fitted  man  for  the  environment  in  which  he  had  been  placed  by 
his  Creator,  and  it  was  capable  of  adaptation  to  the  infinite  vicis- 
situdes of  human  progress.  Accordingly,  it  had  proportionate 
vitahty.  Rooted  out  in  one  place,  it  grew  in  another.  It  re- 
sponded too  nearly  to  the  needs  and  aspirations  of  multitudes 
ever  to  be  wholly  blotted  out.  There  was  always  a  propitious 
soil  for  its  scattered  seeds,  and  its  resistance  of  inertia  in  the  end 
proved  too  much  for  even  the  persistent  energy  of  its  destroyers. 

Yet  in  Italy  the  Cathari  lasted  long  after  they  had  disappeared 
from  France.  Driven  from  the  plains  of  Lombardy  and  central 
Italy,  they  took  refuge  in  places  less  accessible.  In  1340  we  hear 
of  them  in  Corsica,  when  Gerald,  the  Franciscan  general,  sent  his 
friars  thither,  who  succeeded  in  exterminating  them  for  a  time. 
In  1369  we  again  find  Franciscans,  under  Fra  Mondino  da  Bo- 
logna, zealously  at  work  there,  and  earnestly  supported  by  Greg- 
ory XI.  In  1372  and  13Y3  Gregory  wrote  to  the  Bishops  of 
Marrana  and  Ajaccio,  and  to  Fra  Gabriele  da  Montalcino,  urging 
renewed  activity,  and,  with  singular  lenity,  authorizing  them  to 
remit  the  death-penalty  in  cases  of  single  relapse.  These  hunted 
refugees  were  mostly  in  the  forests  and  mountains,  and  to  subdue 
them  a  chain  of  spiritual  forts  was  established,  in  the  shape  of 
Franciscan  houses.  As  late  as  1397  a  certain  Fni  Francesco  was 
sent  to  Corsica  in  the  double  capacity  of  papal  nuncio  and  inquis- 
itor.* 

On  the  mainland,  in  spite  of  the  vigilance  of  the  Inquisition, 
Cathari  continued  to  exist  in  Piedmont.  In  1388  Fra  Antonio 
Secco  of  SavigMano  had  the  good-fortune  to  lay  hands  on  one  of 
the  active  members  of  the  sect,  Giacomo  Bech  of  Chicri,  near  Turin. 
The  report  of  his  examination  before  the  inquisitor  and  the  Bish- 
op of  Turin,  which  has  been  printed  by  Sig.  Girolamo  Amati, 
gives  fuU  details  of  the  condition  of  the  sect.  After  his  tongue 
had  been  loosened  by  repeated  apphcations  of  torture,  his  confes- 


*  Wadding,  ann.  1340,  No.  10;  ann.  1369,  No.  4;  ann.  1373,  No.  7;  Regeet. 
Gregor.  PP.  XI.  No.  45-7  ;  Tom.  VII.  p.  481.— Raynald.  ann.  1373,  No.  35. 


256  ITALY. 

sion  shows  that  it  was  numerous  in  the  vicinage,  and  that  it  com- 
prised members  of  many  noble  families  —  the  Patrizi,  Bertoni, 
Petiti,  ISTarro,  and  ancestors  of  Balbi  and  Cavour.  Although  in 
Italy,  as  in  France,  the  name  of  Waldenses  had  become  applicable 
to  all  heretics,  and  they  were  comm.only  designated  by  this  name, 
they  retained  the  moderated  dualism  of  the  Lombard  Cathari.  Sa- 
tan fell  from  heaven,  created  the  visible  universe,  and  will  finally 
return  to  glory.  The  law  of  Moses  was  dictated  by  him,  and  Moses 
was  the  greatest  of  sinners.  Human  souls  are  fallen  demons,  who 
transmigrate  into  other  human  bodies,  or  into  those  of  animals, 
until  released  by  death -bed  consolamentma.  The  purity  of  the 
faith  was  maintained  by  occasional  intercourse  with  its  headquar- 
ters in  Bosnia.  Giacomo  Bech  was  converted  by  a  Slavonian 
missionary,  in  conjunction  with  Jocerino  de'  Balbi  and  Piero  Pa- 
trizi, and  the  latter  gave  him  ten  florins  and  sent  him  to  Bosnia 
to  perfect  himself  in  the  doctrines,  though  he  was  compelled  by 
ill-fortune  at  sea  to  return  without  accomplishing  his  pilgrimage. 
Forty  years  before  one  of  the  Balbi  had  gone  thither  for  the  same 
purpose ;  in  1360  a  ISTarro  and  a  Benso,  Piero  Patrizi  himself  in 
13T7,  and  Berardo  Eascherio  in  1380.  Evidently  the  little  com- 
munity of  Chieri  maintained  active  relations  with  the  heads  of 
the  Church.  In  1370  Bech  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  in- 
quisitor, Fra  Tommaso  da  Casacho,  had  been  forced  to  confess,  and 
had  been  released  after  abjuration  in  reward  for  his  betraying  his 
feUow-disciples.* 

Fra  Antonio's  labors  had  been  already  rewarded  by  the  dis- 
covery of  another  sect  of  Cathari  in  the  valleys  to  the  west  and 
northwest  of  Turin.  Their  heresiarch  was  Martino  del  Prete, 
and  the  community  of  Chieri  had  vainly  endeavored  to  win  them 
over  to  unity.  In  Pignerol,  Fra  Antonio  had,  in  ISTovember,  138Y, 
arrested  a  suspected  heretic  named  Antonio  Galosna,  w^ho  passed 
for  a  Franciscan  Tertiary.  The  Inquisition  in  those  parts  was 
greatly  dependent  upon  the  secular  authorities,  and  the  Count  of 
Savoy,  Amadeo  YII.,  was  not  disposed  to  second  it  with  zeal. 
When  Galosna  at  first  denied,  Antonio  succeeded  in  having  him 
tortured  tiU  he  promised  to  tell  everything  if  released  from  tort- 
ure, and  accordingly  the  next  day  he  made  confession  ;  but  Gio- 

•  Archivio  Storico  Italiano,  1865,  No.  39,  pp.  46-61. 


THE    CATHARI    OF    PIEDMONT.  257 

vanni  di  Brayda,  the  chamberlain  of  Amadeo,  and  Antonio  da 
Valencia,  the  Judge  of  Pignerol,  promised  him  that  if  he  would 
retract  they  would  effect  his  deliverance.  The  Castellan  of 
Pignerol,  in  whose  charge  he  w^as,  also  offered  to  liberate  him  on 
receiving  live  florins  for  himself  and  seventy  more  for  necessary 
expenses ;  but,  although  Galosna  pledged  all  his  property  to  raise 
the  sum,  this  device  seems  to  have  failed.  On  December  29  he 
was  brought  before  the  count  himself,  after  being  warned  by  di 
Brayda  that  if  he  confirmed  his  confession  he  should  be  hanged. 
He  accordingly  retracted  it,  but  was  not  liberated,  and  a  month 
later,  in  the  presence  of  the  count  and  the  inquisitor,  he  repeated 
that  his  confession  had  been  extorted  by  violence.  Apparently 
he  was  made  the  subject  of  a  prolonged  debate  between  State  and 
Church,  in  which  the  latter  triumphed,  for  on  May  29  w^e  find 
him  in  the  possession  of  the  Bishop  of  Turin  and  of  the  inquisitor, 
undergoing  examination  in  the  castle  of  Dross,  near  Turin.* 

He  proved  a  mine  of  information  well  worth  the  repeated  in- 
terrogatories ^vhich  extended  from  May  29  to  July  10,  for  he  had 
been  a  member  of  the  sect  for  twenty-five  years  and  a  wandering 
missionary  for  fifteen,  and  was  familiar  with  all  the  congrega- 
tions, which  appear  to  have  been  numerous,  some  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Turin,  but  mostly  in  the  low^er  Alpine  valleys  between 
Pignerol  and  Susa.  Though  he  repeatedly  alludes  to  the  sectaries 
as  Vaudois,  they  had  no  affinity  with  the  "Waldenses,  and  it  is  ob- 
servable that  he  makes  no  reference  to  their  existence  in  any  of 
the  distinctive  Waldensian  vaUeys,  such  as  Angrogna,  Perosa,  or 
San  Martino.  They  w^ere  mostly  poor  folk — peasants,  servants, 
muleteers,  innkeepers,  mechanics,  and  artisans,  and  the  chiefs  of 
their  "  synagogues  "  were  generally  of  this  class,  although  occasion- 
ally a  clerk,  a  canon,  a  notary,  or  other  educated  person  is  enu- 
merated among  the  members.  "What  w^ere  their  precise  distinctive 
tenets  it  is  not  easy  to  define  w^ith  accuracy.  Galosna's  rough 
handling  had  evidently  rendered  him  eager  to  satisfy  the  credu- 
lity of  his  examiners,  and  the  imaginative  character  of  some  of 
his  revelations  casts  a  doubt  on  the  truthfulness  of  them  all.  The 
applicant  for  initiation  had  to  drink  a  beverage,  foul  of  aspect, 
made  with  the  excrement  of  a  toad  kept  for  the  purpose ;  taken 


*  Archivio  Storico  Italiano,  1865,  No,  39,  pp.  33-5. 

II.— 17 


258  ITALY. 

in  excess  it  was  apt  to  prove  fatal,  and  its  power  was  such  that 
whoso  once  partook  of  it  could  never  thereafter  abandon  the  sect. 
Martino  del  Prete,  the  chief  heresiarch,  had  a  black  cat  as  large 
as  a  lamb,  which  he  declared  to  be  the  best  friend  he  had  on 
earth.  "We  may  safely  set  down  the  accounts  of  the  sexual  abom- 
inations which  succeeded  religious  services  in  the  conventicles, 
when  the  lights  were  extinguished,  as  worthy  of  equal  credence. 
Contradictions  in  the  repeated  statements  of  the  doctrines  taught 
show  that  Galosna's  imagination  served  him  better  than  his  mem- 
ory in  his  prolonged  examinations.  He  was  told  that  in  joining 
the  sect  he  would  secure  salvation  in  glory  with  God  the  Father, 
and  yet  he  declares  that  the  sect  rejected  immortality,  and  held 
that  the  soul  died  with  the  body — and  again,  that  there  was  no 
purgatory,  but  only  heaven  and  hell  hereafter.  They  believed, 
moreover,  in  God  the  Father  who  created  the  heavens,  but  they 
worshipped  the  Great  Dragon,  the  creator  of  the  world,  who 
fought  God  and  the  angels,  and  was  more  powerful  than  he 
on  earth.  Christ  was  not  the  Son  of  God,  but  of  Joseph,  and 
was  worthy  of  no  special  reverence.  Altogether  the  account  is 
hopelessly  confused,  but  we  can  discern  the  dualism  of  a  bastard 
Catharism,  and  allusions  are  made  to  the  consolamentum  and  the 
sacrament  of  bread.  Like  Jacopo  Bech,  Galosna  had  already  ab- 
jured in  the  hands  of  Fra  Tommaso  da  Casacho.  Both  were  there- 
fore relapsed ;  there  was  no  mercy  for  them,  and  on  September  5, 
1388,  they  were  abandoned  to  the  secular  arm  in  Turin  and  neces- 
sarily burned.  Unfortunately  the  record  ends  here,  and  we  have 
no  details  as  to  the  rich  harvest  which  Fra  Antonio  must  have 
reaped  from  the  ample  information  obtained  from  his  victims  as 
to  the  scattered  members  of  the  sects.* 

Notwithstanding  these  evidences  of  vitality,  Catharism  was 
rapidly  dying  out.  The  latest  definite  reference  to  it,  west  of  the 
Adriatic,  occurs  in  1403,  when  San  Yicente  Ferrer,  the  great  Span- 
ish revivahst,  undertook  a  peaceful  mission  in  the  remote  valleys 
which  no  Catholic  priest  had  dared  to  visit  for  thirty  years,  when 
he  found  and  converted  a  number  of  Cathari  dwelling  among  the 
Waldenses.     He  regarded  as  a  form  of  Manichaeism  the  worship 


*  Archivio  Storico  Italiano,  1865,  No.  39,  pp.  4^5. — G.  Manuel  di  S.  Giovan- 
ni, Un  Episodic  della  Storia  del  Piemonte,  Torino,  1874,  pp.  75  sqq. 


THE    WALDENSES    OF    PIEDMONT.  259 

of  the  rising  sun  which  he  found  habitual  among  the  peasants  of 
the  diocese  of  Lausanne,  and  some  such  survival  of  nature- worship 
was  probably  not  infrequent,  for  a  penitent  of  Fra  Antonio  Secco, 
in  1387,  speaks  of  adoring  the  sun  and  moon  on  bended  knees. 
Yet  there  would  seem  to  be  a  remnant  of  Catharism  lingering 
among  the  Waldenses  of  the  Savoy  valleys  as  late  as  1451,  when 
Filippo  Kegis  was  tried  by  the  Inquisition."^ 

Italian  Waldensianism  continued  to  flourish  in  the  mountain 
fastnesses  of  Piedmont,  where  the  endless  struggle  with  parsimoni- 
ous nature  fostered  the  hardier  virtues.  Thence,  as  we  have  seen 
were  emigrants  and  even  colonies  sent  out,  as  persecution  scattered 
the  faithful  or  as  population  outgrew  the  narrow  means  of  sub- 
sistence. The  kindlier  climate  and  less  aggressive  Inquisition  of 
Naples  finally  rendered  the  southern  colonies  the  headquarters  of 
the  sect,  with  which  constant  intercommunication  was  kept  up. 
In  1387  we  are  told  that  the  chief  pontiff  resided  in  Apulia  and 
that  the  Waldensian  community  at  Barge  in  Piedmont  was  pre- 
sided over  by  two  Apulians.  A  century  later  the  mother  com- 
munities in  the  Cottian  Alps  stiU  looked  to  southern  Italy  as  to 
the  centre  of  their  Church.f 

In  1292  we  hear  of  persecutions  in  the  Val  Perosa,  and  again 
in  1312  there  were  burnings  of  obstinate  heretics  in  the  valle3^s, 
but  these  efforts  effected  httle,  for  in  1332  a  brief  of  John  XXII. 
describes  the  Waldensian  church  of  the  diocese  of  Turin  as  beine- 
in  a  most  flourishing  condition.  The  heretics  were  so  numerous 
that  they  disdained  concealment,  holding  assemblies  in  public  in 
which  as  many  as  five  hundred  would  be  gathered  together. 
When  Fra  Giovanni  Alberto,  the  Inquisitor  of  Turin,  had  recently 
made  an  effort  to  repress  them,  they  boldly  rose  in  arms.  On  the 
public  square  of  Angrogna  they  slew  the  parish  priest  Guillelmo, 
whom  they  suspected  of  furnishing  information,  and  Alberto  liim- 
self  they  besieged  in  a  castle  where  he  had  taken  refuge,  so  that 
he  was  glad  to  escape  with  his  life,  leaving  the  land  abandoned  to 


*  Raynald.  ann.  1403,  No.  24.— Archiv.  Stor.  Ital.  1865,  No.  38,  p.  22.— 
Comba,  Les  Vaudois  d'ltalie,  I.  120. 

t  Processus  contra  Valdenses  (Archivio  Storico  Italiano,  1865,  No.  38,  pp. 
39-40).— Coinba,  Hist,  des  Vaudois  dltalie,  I.  354-7. 


260  ITALY. 

heresy.  For  twenty  years  and  more  one  of  their  principal  chiefs 
had  been  a  man  named  Pier  Martino,  known  also  as  Giuliano  or 
Martino  Pastrae,  who  chanced  in  his  wandering  missions  to  fall 
into  the  hands  of  Jean  de  Bades,  the  Inquisitor  of  Provence.  The 
pope  thereupon  orders  the  latter  to  deliver  his  prisoner  to  Fra  Al- 
berto, who  will  be  able  to  extract  from  him  information  of  the 
utmost  value  in  tracking  and  seizing  his  fellow-religionists — in- 
formation, as  the  pope  suggests,  which  will  justify  the  use  of  tort- 
ure. Doubtless  this  lucky  capture  enabled  Fra  Alberto  to  lay 
hands  on  a  number  of  outlying  heretics,  though  he  probably  did 
not  again  venture  his  person  in  the  populous  communities  which 
had  shown  so  sturdy  a  readiness  in  self -protection.* 

Persecution  continued,  and  in  1354:  we  chance  to  hear  of  an 
order  issued  by  Giacomo,  Prince  of  Piedmont,  to  the  Counts  of 
Luserna,  to  imprison  a  number  of  Waldenses  recently  discovered 
in  Luserna  and  the  neighboring  valleys.  The  order  was  issued 
at  the  instance  of  Pietro  di  Kuffia,  Inquisitor  of  Piedmont,  who 
paid  for  his  zeal  with  his  hfe,  being  shortly  afterwards  slain  at 
Susa.  In  1363  and  1364  Urban  Y.  made  another  attempt  to  re- 
duce the  heretics  to  obedience.  The  infected  district  was  exposed 
to  attack  on  both  sides,  for  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Inquisitor  of 
Provence  extended  over  the  Tarantaise.  Frere  Jean  Richard  of 
Marseilles  was  directed  to  assail  them  from  the  west,  while  the 
inquisitor  and  the  Bishop  of  Turin  were  busy  on  the  east.  Ama- 
deo  of  Savoy  was  requested  to  co-operate  with  the  Seneschal  of 
Provence,  and  this  combined  assault  resulted  in  a  number  of  capt- 
ures and  trials.  It  was  doubtless  the  mingled  despair  and  thirst 
for  revenge  excited  by  this  that  led  to  many  Waldenses  joining  in 
the  rising  of  the  Jacquerie  in  Savoy  in  1365— a  rising  which  was 
suppressed  with  the  customary  merciless  cruelty  by  the  King  of 
IS'avarre  and  Wenzel  of  Brabant.  In  spite  of  these  efforts  at  re- 
pression a  letter  written  by  them  in  1368,  to  their  German  breth- 
ren, would  seem  to  show  that  they  were  stiU  regarded  as  the  leaders 
of  the  sect.f  . 

*  Comba,  Hist,  des  Vaudois  d'ltalie,  I.  141. — Herzog,  Die  romanischen  Wal- 
denser,  p.  273.— Wadding,  ann.  1332,  No.  6. 

f  Rorengo,  Memorie  Historicbe,  Torino,  1649,  p.  17.— Wadding,  ann.  1364,  No. 
14,  15.  —  Cantu,  Eretici,  I.  86.  —  D'Argentrg,  Collect.  Judic.  I.  i.  387.  —Comba, 
Ri vista  Cristiana,  1887,  pp.  65  sqq. 


THE    WALDENSES    OF    PIEDMONT.  261 

Gregory  XI.  was  especially  zealous  in  the  warfare  with  heresy, 
and  we  have  already  seen  how  earnest  were  his  efforts  in  1375  to 
suppress  the  Waldenses  of  Provence  and  Dauphine.  Those  of 
Piedmont  had  rendered  themselves  peculiarly  obnoxious.  Fra 
Antonio  Pavo  had  recently  gone  to  "  Bricarax,"  a  place  deeply  in- 
fected with  heresy,  to  preach  against  them — his  sermon,  of  course, 
including  a  summons  before  his  tribunal — when  in  place  of  hum- 
bly submitting,  a  dozen  of  them,  incited  by  the  Evil  One,  had  set 
upon  him  as  he  left  the  church  and  had  slain  him.  Another  in- 
quisitor, probably  Pietro  di  Ruifia,  had  met  the  same  fate  in  the 
Dominican  cloister  at  Susa,  on  the  day  of  the  Purification  of  the 
Virgin  (February  2).  Such  misdeeds  demanded  exemplary  chas- 
tisement, and  Gregory's  exhortations  to  Charles  Y.  of  France  were 
accompanied  with  the  strongest  urgency  on  Amadeo  VI.  of  Savoy 
to  clear  his  land  of  brambles.  We  have  seen  how  successful  were 
the  labors  of  the  Nuncio,  Antonio  Bishop  of  Massa,  and  the  In- 
quisitor of  Provence,  Francois  Borel.  They  did  not  confine  their 
energies  to  the  French  valleys.  The  Waldenses  of  the  Val  di  Susa 
were  exposed  to  the  most  pitiless  persecution ;  on  a  Christmas 
night  Borel  with  an  armed  force  attacked  Pragelato,  putting  to 
the  sword  all  whom  he  could  reach.  The  wretches  who  escaped 
perished  of  hunger  and  cold,  including,  it  is  said,  fifty  women  with 
children  at  the  breast.* 

It  may  be  hoped  that  this  holocaust  satisfied  the  manes  of  the 
murdered  inquisitors,  for  they  seem  to  have  received  no  other  sat- 
isfaction. A  succession  of  inquisitors  —  Piero  di  Castelinonte, 
Ruffino  di  Terdona,  Tommaso  da  Casacho,  and  Michele  Grassi,  un- 
daunted by  the  fate  of  their  predecessors,  wasted  their  energies  on 
the  Piedmontese  Waldenses  without  reducing  them  to  subjection. 
The  pitiless  forays  of  Borel  drove  the  poor  wretches  from  their 
native  valleys,  and  they  poured  over  into  Piedmont.  Amadeo 
VII.,  who  succeeded  his  father  in  1383,  seems  to  have  given  the 
Inquisition  but  slender  support,  and  it  had  little  encouragement  in 
its  efforts  to  subdue  the  stubborn  mountaineers.  The  fragmentary 
records  of  Fra  Antonio  Secco,  who  undertook  the  work  in  the 
spring  of  1387,  show  hoAV  fruitless  was  the  endeavor  to  co-operate 


*  Raynald.  ann.  1375,  No.  26.— Filippo  de  Boni,  L'InquLz.  e  i  Calabro-Yaldesi, 
p.  70. 


262  ITALY. 

witli  the  ruthless  proselytism  of  Borel.  It  is  true  that  he  caught 
Isabel  Ferreria,  the  wife  of  Giovanni  Gabriele,  one  of  the  mur- 
derers of  Antonio  Pavo,  and  had  the  satisfaction  of  torturing  her, 
but  he  could  get  no  evidence  against  her,  and  could  only  learn  that 
her  husband  had  died  in  1386.  Some  other  suspects  he  tortured 
and  penanced  with  crosses :  apparently  he  had  no  prisons  at  his  dis- 
posal in  which  to  incarcerate  them.  Accusations  and  denuncia- 
tions poured  in  to  him  by  the  hundred,  showing  that  the  land  was 
alive  with  heretics,  but  he  was  powerless  to  inflict  on  them  punish- 
ment that  would  make  an  impression.  One  of  his  first  cases  had 
been  a  certain  Lorenzo  Bandoria,  who  had  abjured  before  Antonio 
Pavo,  and  who  under  torture  confessed  to  continued  heresy.  Here 
was  a  clear  case  of  relapse,  and  accordingly,  on  March  31,  he  was 
abandoned  to  the  secular  arm  and  all  his  property  declared  con- 
fiscated to  the  Inquisition.  This  proved  a  mere  hrutum.  fulm.en, 
for  on  May  6  Fra  Antonio  was  obliged  to  issue  a  mandate  to 
Ugonetto  Bruno,  Lord  of  Ozasco,  ordering  him,  under  pain  of  a 
hundred  marks,  to  capture  Lorenzo  and  present  him  before  the 
tribunal  the  next  day,  while  the  treasurer  of  Ozasco  was  required, 
under  threat  of  excommunication,  to  appear  at  the  same  time  with 
an  inventory  of  all  the  convict's  property.  As  Lorenzo  had  been 
handed  over  to  the  Castellan  of  Pignerol  for  execution,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  the  officials  refused  to  carry  out  the  sentences  of  the  in- 
quisitor, nor  does  this  new  effort  appear  to  have  had  any  better 
result.  Many  of  his  citations  were  disregarded,  and  when,  on 
May  19,  he  ordered  the  lords  of  Ozasco  to  arrest  three  heretics 
under  penalty  of  a  hundred  marks,  no  attention  seems  to  have 
been  paid  to  the  command.  This  insubordination  increased,  and 
as  the  season  advanced  we  observe  that  when  an  accused  refuses 
to  confess,  the  dread  entry  "  the  lord  inquisitor  is  not  content "  is 
not  followed  by  the  customary  torture,  but  that  the  culprit  is 
mercifully  dismissed  under  bail.  One  case  gave  Fra  Antonio  in- 
finite disgust.  On  June  27  he  cited  Giacomo  Do  and  Sanzio 
Margarit  of  Sangano ;  they  did  not  appear,  but  on  August  6  he 
found  them  in  Turin  and  seized  them.  For  fifteen  days  he  kept 
them  in  chains,  when  they  broke  jail,  but  by  the  help  of  God  he 
caught  them  again  and  carried  them  to  the  castle  of  Avegliana, 
where  they  remained  ten  days.  He  had  been  unable  to  get  them 
tortured,  and  they  would  not  confess  without  it ;  the  magistrates 


THE    WALDENSES    OF    PIEDMONT.  263 

of  Avegliana  appealed  to  Count  Auiadeo,  who  ordered  them  re- 
leased, and  Fra  Antonio  records  the  unwiUingness  with  which  he 
obeyed  the  command.  He  endeavored  to  turn  his  stay  in  Avegli- 
ana to  account  by  pubUshing  the  customary  monition  for  all  per- 
sons to  come  forward  and  confess  their  own  heresy  or  denounce 
those  who  were  suspect.  For  nine  days  he  waited,  but  not  a  soul 
appeared  to  accuse  himself  or  his  neighbors,  and  he  departed, 
grieved  at  heart  over  the  obduracy  of  the  people,  for  it  was  com- 
mon fame  that  there  were  many  heretics  there  and  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, especially  at  Coazze  and  Yalgione.  The  final  blow  came 
when  in  December  he  issued  a  summons  to  all  the  officials  of  Yal 
Perosa,  one  of  the  recognized  Waldensian  valleys,  reciting  that 
their  land  was  full  of  heretics  and  that  they  must  appear  before 
him  in  Pignerol  to  purge  themselves  and  their  communities  of  this 
infamy.  They  did  not  obey,  but  through  the  intervention  of  the 
Piedmontese  Chancellor,  Giovanni  di  Brayda,  and  other  courtiers, 
they  agreed  to  pay  Count  Amadeo  five  hundred  florins  a  year,  for 
which  he  was  to  prevent  the  inquisitor  from  visiting  Val  Perosa, 
and  they  were  to  be  exempted  from  obeying  his  citations.  This 
was  too  much  to  endure,  and  Fra  Antonio  shook  the  dust  of  Pig- 
nerol from  his  feet  for  the  more  promising  chase  of  the  Cathari 
near  Turin,  first  denouncing  the  officials  of  Val  Perosa  as  having 
incurred  excommunication  and  the  penalties  of  contumacy,  the 
only  result  of  which  was  to  draw  upon  his  head  the  wrath  of  Count 
Amadeo.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  had  any  better  success  in 
endeavoring  to  obtain  for  his  Inquisition  the  confiscations  of  the 
people  of  Pragelato  condemned  by  the  Provencal  inquisitor,  Fran- 
cois Borel.  By  a  special  privilege  of  Clement  VII.  the  hitter's 
jurisdiction  had  been  extended  over  some  of  the  Piedmontese  val- 
leys, and  though  Fra  Antonio  might  abandon  the  persons  of  the 
heretics  to  his  Franciscan  rival,  he  was  resolved,  if  he  could,  to 
retain  their  property.  These  mishaps  of  Fra  Antonio  have  an  in- 
terest, not  only  as  a  rare  instance  of  difficulties  thrown  into  the 
path  of  the  Inquisition,  but  as  explaining  why  the  fierce  persecu- 
tions of  Borel  had  so  little  effect  in  diminishinc]:  Waldensianism.* 


*  Processus  contra  Valdenses  (Archivio  Storico  Italiano,  1865,  No.  38,  pp. 
18-52). 

There  is  some  confusion  as  to  the  dates  of  these  events  which  I  cannot  remove. 


264  ITALY. 

Pragelato,  however,  suffered  more  severely  in  1400  when,  about 
Christmas,  it  was  attacked  by  an  armed  force  from  Susa.  The  in- 
habitants who  escaped  death  or  capture  took  refuge  on  the  moun- 
tain-tops of  the  Val  San  Marti  no,  where  many  perished  from  ex- 
posure in  the  inclement  season ;  and  the  sur\dvors,  on  returning 
after  the  departure  of  the  troops,  found  their  dwellings  disman- 
tled. This  cold-blooded  cruelty  shocked  even  Boniface  IX,,  who 
ordered  the  inquisitor  in  charge  of  the  foray  to  moderate  his  zeal 
in  future.* 

Yicente  Ferrer's  visit  of  1403  was  of  a  more  peaceful  nature, 
but  it  is  not  likely  that  the  conversions  of  which  he  boasted  were 
more  permanent  than  those  which  his  eloquence  effected  with  the 
Moors  and  Jews  of  his  native  land,  where  they  eagerly  clamored 
for  baptism  under  the  persuasion  of  massacre.f 

During  the  Great  Schism  persecution  slackened,  but  already,  in 
1416,  fresh  decrees  were  issued  against  the  Waldenses.  Our  knowl- 
edge of  details  is  but  fragmentary  at  best,  and  it  is  impossible  to 
construct  a  complete  history  of  the  conflict  between  them  and  the 
Inquisition,  but  we  may  fairly  infer  that  the  latter  was  at  least 
spasmodically  active.  A  petition  addressed  to  the  Duke  of  Savoy 
by  the  lords  of  Luserna  recites  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  valley 
were  in  full  rebellion,  owing  to  repeated  persecution;  the  docu- 
ment is  without  date,  but  must  be  posterior  to  141 Y,  when  Sigis- 
mund  erected  the  county  into  a  duchy.  Again,  we  know  that,  be- 
tween 1440  and  1450,  Fra  Bertrando  Piero,  vicar  of  the  inquisitor, 
in  one  raid  burned  at  Coni  twenty -two  relapsed  heretics,  and  con- 
fiscated their  property.     This  happens  to  be  alluded  to  in  a  me- 


Gregory  XI.,  in  his  letter  of  April  20,  1375,  to  Amadeo  VI.,  speaks  of  the  recent 
murder  at  "Bricherasio"  of  the  inquisitor  Antonius  Salvianensis  (Raynald.  ami. 
1375,  No.  26).  According  to  the  records  of  Antonio  Secco,  Antonio  Pavo  da 
Savigliano  received  in  1384  the  abjuration  of  Lorenzo  Bandoria  (loc.  cit.  p.  23), 
and  his  murder  must  have  taken  place  the  same  year,  from  the  evidence  of  the 
son  of  one  of  his  murderers,  Giov.  Gabriele  of  "  Bricherasio  "  (lb.  p.  31).  Rorengo 
places  the  martyrdom  of  Antonio  Pavo  in  1374,  and  tells  us  that  he  was  honored 
in  Savigliano  with  a  local  cult  as  one  of  the  blessed.  Another  Dominican,  Fra 
Bartolomeo  di  Cervere  was  also  slain,  and  his  assistant  Ricardo  desperately 
wounded,  but  the  date  is  not  certain  (Rorengo,  Memorie  Historiche,  p.  17). 

*  Chabrand,  Vaudois  et  Protestants  des  Alpes,  Grenoble,  188G,  p.  39. 

t  Raynald.  ann.  1403,  No.  24. — Melgares  Marin,  Procedimieutos  de  la  Inquisi- 
cion,  Madrid,  1886,  L  50. 


THE    WALDENSES    OF    PIEDMONT.  265 

morial  addressed  in  145Y  to  Calixtus  III.,  by  the  people  of  the 
neighboring  village  of  Bernez,  who  proceed  to  relate  that  after 
this  exploit  Fra  Bertrando  visited  their  town  in  company  with 
his  principal,  Fra  Ludovico  da  Soncino,  and  commenced  an  inqui- 
sition there,  but  abandoned  it,  to  the  scandal  of  the  people,  with- 
out concluding  the  trials.  Then  Felix  V.  (Amadeo  of  Savoy)  sent 
the  Abbot  of  San-Piero  of  Savigliano  to  complete  the  unfinished 
business,  who  acquitted  a  number  of  the  accused.  Then  recently 
there  had  come  a  new  inquisitor  who  took  up  the  cases  again  and 
molested  those  who  had  been  discharged,  whereupon  they  peti- 
tioned the  pope  that  he  be  restrained  from  further  proceedings 
until  two  experts  in  theology  be  appointed  as  assessors  by  the 
Bishop  of  Mondovi  and  the  Abbot  of  Savigliano.  The  presenta- 
tion of  such  a  request  shows  how  much  the  Inquisition  had  lost  of 
its  power  of  inspiring  awe,  and  this  is  emphasized  by  the  action  of 
Calixtus  in  ordering  the  Bishop  of  Turin  and  the  inquisitor  to  as- 
sociate with  themselves  two  experts  and  proceed  with  the  cases. 
It  indicates,  moreover,  that  little  rest  was  allowed  to  the  Waldenses. 
While  this  affair  was  dragging  its  slow  length  along,  Nicholas  Y., 
in  1453,  addressed  to  the  Bishops  of  Turin  and  Nice  and  to  the 
Inquisitor  Giacomo  di  Buronzo,  a  bull  reciting  that  Giacomo  had 
found  in  the  Yalley  of  Luserna  a  majority  of  the  inhabitants  in- 
fected with  heresy,  many  of  them  having  relapsed  repeatedly. 
Unable  to  convert  them,  he  had  placed  an  interdict  on  the  vaUey ; 
the  people  had  repented  and  begged  for  readmission  to  the  Church, 
wherefore  Nicholas  orders  the  removal  of  the  interdict,  and  that 
penitents,  whether  relapsed  or  not,  be  pardoned  and  restored  to 
all  their  civil  rights — a  degree  of  lenity  which  indicates  that  sterner 
measures  at  the  time  were  clearly  inexpedient.* 

In  1475  a  more  serious  war  of  extermination  was  commenced 
against  them  under  the  Duchess  Yolande,  Kegent  of  Savoy,  in  con- 
junction with  the  simultaneous  action  of  the  Inquisition  in  Dau- 
phine.  By  an  edict  of  January  23, 1476,  all  the  officials  in  the  in- 
fected districts  were  placed  at  the  disposition  of  the  Inquisition, 
and  the  podesta  of  Luserna  was  cited  to  appear  on  February  10, 
to  answer  for  his  conduct,  in  refusing,  at  the  instance  of  the  In- 


*  Rorengo,  Memorie  Historiche,  pp.  18-20.  — E.  Comba,  Rivista  Cristiana, 
Giugno,  1882,  p.  204.— Ripoll  HI.  359. 


266  ITALY. 

quisitor  Andrea  di  Aquapendente,  to  make  proclamation  that  none 
of  the  converts  of  Giacomo  di  Buronzo  should  be  permitted  to  ef- 
fect sales  greater  in  amount  than  one  florin,  and  that  all  sales 
which  had  been  made  by  them  were  void,  for  they  had  relapsed, 
were  endeavoring  to  emigrate,  and  to  dispose  of  their  property, 
which  was  legally  confiscated.  Louis  XI.,  who  stopped  the  per- 
secution, as  we  have  seen,  so  unceremoniously  in  his  own  dominions, 
felt  interest  enough  in  the  matter  to  extend  protection  over  the 
unfortunates  in  his  sister's  territories,  and  his  word  had  power  suf- 
ficient to  dampen  the  zeal  of  the  duchess,  who  was  wholly  depen- 
dent on  him  after  the  misfortunes  of  Charles  the  Bold.  Sixtus  IV. 
was  much  scandaUzed  by  this.  He  had  sent  a  special  papal  com- 
missioner to  speed  the  holy  work,  and  he  wrote  pressingly  to 
Louis,  assuming  that  the  royal  letters  of  protection  must  have 
been  surreptitiously  obtained.  He  instructed  the  Bishop  of  Turin 
to  go,  if  possible,  in  person  to  Louis  and  to  make  every  effort  to 
exterminate  the  heretics,  who  dared  openly  to  propagate  their 
doctrines  and  make  converts,  to  the  ruin  of  immortal  souls.  The 
death  of  Louis,  in  1483,  deprived  the  Waldenses  of  their  protector, 
and  persecution  recommenced.  An  order  of  Duke  Carlo  I.,  in 
1484,  to  inquire  into  the  violences  committed  by  the  people  of  An- 
grogna,  Villaro,  and  Bobbio  because  their  lords  endeavored  to  sup- 
press their  heresies,  shows  how  soon  and  how  bitterly  the  strug- 
gle broke  out  afresh.  The  heretics  scattered  through  the  towns 
of  Piedmont  were  mercilessly  dealt  with  by  the  inquisitors,  but 
those  Avho  inhabited  the  mountain  valleys  were  safe,  except  from 
assault  by  overwhelming  forces.  In  April,  148Y,  Innocent  YIII. 
recites  how  the  inquisitor -general,  Fra  Blasio  di  Monreale,  had 
gone  to  the  infected  district,  and  had  vainly  sought  by  earnest 
exhortations  to  induce  the  heretics  to  abandon  their  errors ;  how 
they  had  contemptuously  defied  his  censures,  had  continued  open- 
ly to  preach  and  make  converts,  had  attacked  his  house,  slain  his 
famihar,  and  pillaged  his  goods.  More  strenuous  efforts  were  evi- 
dently requisite,  and  Innocent  appointed  Alberto  de'  Capitanei, 
Archdeacon  of  Cremona,  as  papal  nuncio  and  commissioner  to 
Piedmont  and  Dauphine,  with  instructions  to  coerce  the  people 
to  receive  Fra  Blasio,  and  permit  the  free  exercise  of  his  oflBce,  and 
to  crush  the  heretics  like  venomous  serpents.  To  this  end  Al- 
berto was  empowered  to  preach  a  crusade  with  plenary  indul- 


THE    WALDEN8ES    OF    PIEDMONT.  267 

gences,  and  to  deprive  of  their  office  and  dignities  all,  whether 
ecclesiastics  or  laymen,  who  refused  to  obey  his  commands.  From 
February  to  May,  1488,  he  duly  issued  his  citations  to  the  heretics, 
and  as  they  were  contumacious,  he  condemned  them  accordingly 
and  abandoned  them  in  mass  to  the  secular  arm.  Meanwhile  a 
force  estimated  at  eighteen  thousand  crusaders  had  been  raised 
in  France  and  Piedmont,  which  advanced  in  four  columns  so  as 
to  block  every  avenue  of  escape.  The  slaughter  in  Val  Louise 
has  already  been  alluded  to.  The  Val  d'Angrogna  was  more  fort- 
unate, and  in  the  attack  upon  it  the  crusading  army  was  virtu- 
ally annihilated.  This  victory  earned  for  the  Waldenses  a  respite, 
and  in  1490  Carlo  I.  invited  them  to  a  conference  at  Pignerol, 
where  he  granted  them  peace  and  confirmed  their  privileges.  In 
1498  they  were  visited  by  Lucas  of  Prague  and  Thomas  Ger- 
manus,  envoys  of  the  Unitas  Fratrum  of  Bohemia.  Through  these 
they  addressed  a  letter  to  the  Bohemian  King  Ladislas  and  his 
nobles,  boasting  that  they  did  not  frequent  the  Catholic  churches, 
fiercely  denouncing  the  vices  of  the  priesthood,  and  arguing  that 
the  benediction  of  such  men  was  rather  a  malediction.  Evidently 
the  spirit  of  the  persecuted  saints  was  unbroken,  and  it  was  soon 
after  put  to  the  test  in  the  valley  of  the  Po,  where  whole  villages 
were  found  to  consist  of  Waldenses.  Marguerite  de  Foix,  Mar- 
chioness of  Saluces,  put  troops  at  the  command  of  the  Inquisitor 
Angelo  Ricciardino,  who  had  found  his  ordinary  machinery  baf- 
fled. The  villages  of  Pravillelm,  Beitoneto,  and  Oncino  were  raided ; 
most  of  the  inhabitants  succeeded  in  escaping  to  Luserna,  but 
some  were  captured,  and  five  were  sentenced  to  be  burned,  March 
24, 1510.  A  heavy  snow-storm  delaved  the  execution,  and  during 
the  ensuing  night  the  prisoners  broke  jail  and  joined  their  com- 
rades. The  inquisitor,  however,  was  not  to  be  balked  of  his  ex- 
hibition, and  replaced  the  fugitives  with  three  prisoners  to  whom 
he  had  promised  pardon  in  consideration  of  the  fulness  of  their 
confessions,  and  who  were  duly  burned.  The  deserted  villages 
were  confiscated  and  made  over  to  good  Catholics,  but  the  refugees 
at  intervals  descended  on  them,  slaying  and  spoiling  without 
mercy,  till  no  one  dared  to  dwell  there.  Finally  the  bigoted 
marchioness  yielded,  and  for  a  round  sum  of  money,  in  1512,  per- 
mitted the  exiles  to  return  and  dwell  in  peace.  The  triumph  of 
toleration  thus  won  by  the  sword  was  but  local  and  temporary. 


268  ITALY. 

In  Savoy,  the  statutes  published  in  1513  contain  all  the  tirae^ 
honored  provisions  for  the  suppression  of  heresy,  with  instruc- 
tions to  all  public  officials  to  aid  in  every  way  the  Inquisition, 
whose  expenses  are  to  be  defrayed  out  of  the  confiscations.  Con- 
tinued persecution  was  thus  provided  for,  nor  Avas  it  averted  when, 
in  1530,  the  Waldenses  opened  negotiations  with  the  Protestants 
of  Switzerland,  resulting  in  their  final  incorporation  with  the  Cal- 
vinists.* 

These  incessant  ravages  naturally  led  to  emigration  on  an  ex- 
tended scale,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  mostly  turned  itself  to  Cala- 
bria and  Apulia,  where  the  brethren  had  dwelt  in  comparative 
peace  for  nearly  two  centuries.  A  large  portion  of  the  popula- 
tion of  Freyssinieres,  for  instance,  expatriated  themselves  and  set- 
tled in  the  vaUey  of  Yolturara.  The  Inquisition  was  virtually 
extinct  in  the  kingdom  of  Naples  during  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  the  heretics  had  earned  toleration  by  a  decent  reserve.  They 
attended  mass  occasionally,  allowed  their  children  to  be  baptized 
by  the  priests,  and,  what  was  more  important,  they  paid  their 
tithes  with  exemplary  regularity  —  tithes  which  grew  satisfac- 
torily under  the  incessant  industry  of  the  God-fearing  husband- 
men. The  mountain  valleys  which  had  been  almost  a  desert  be- 
came smiling  with  corn-fields  and  pastures,  orchards  and  vine- 
yards. The  nobles  on  whose  lands  they  had  settled  under  formal 
agreements  gave  willing  protection  to  those  who  contributed  so 
greatly  to  their  revenues.  When  the  independence  of  the  feuda- 
tories was  lost  under  the  growing  royal  power  of  the  House  of 
Aragon,  the  heretics  sought  and  obtained,  in  1497,  from  King 
Frederic,  the  confirmation  by  the  crown  of  the  agreements  with 
the  nobles,  and  thus  felt  assured  of  continued  toleration.  They 
were  visited  every  two  years  by  the  travelling  pastors,  or  harbes, 
who  came  in  pairs,  an  elder,  known  as  the  reggitore,  and  a  j^ounger, 
the  coadiutore,  journeying  with  some  pretence  of  occupation,  find- 
ing in  every  city  the  secret  band  of  believers  whom  it  was  their 


*  Hahn,  Geschiclite  der  Ketzer  im  Mittalalter,  II.  705.  —  Rorengo,  Memorie 
Historicbe,  i)p.  22-5. — Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  II.  1510-11. — Leger,  Hist,  des  l^glises 
Vaudoises,  II.  8-15,  26,  71.— Perrin,  Hist,  des  Vaudois,  L.  ii.  c.  4.  — Filippo  de 
Boni,  op.  cit.  p.  71. —  Coiiiba,  Les  Vaudois  dltalie,  I.  167,  175-8. —  Herzog,  Die 
reman.  Waldenser,  p.  274. — Montet,  Hist.  Litt.  des  Vaudois,  pp.  152-55.— D'Ar- 
geutrg,  Coll.  Judic.  1. 1. 105-7. 


DECLINE    OF    THE    INQUISITION.  269 

mission  to  comfort  and  keep  steadfast  in  the  faith,  and  from  whom 
they  made  collections  which  they  reported  to  the  General  Assem- 
bly or  Council.  Between  Pignerol  and  Calabria  they  counted 
twenty-five  days'  journey  along  the  western  coast,  returning  by 
the  eastern  to  Venice.  Everywhere  they  met  friends  acquainted 
with  their  secret  passwords,  and  in  spite  of  ecclesiastical  vigilance 
there  existed  throughout  Italy  a  subterranean  network  of  heresy 
disguised  under  outward  conformity.  In  1497  the  envoys  from 
the  Bohemian  Brethren,  Lucas  and  Thomas,  found  in  Rome  itself 
one  of  their  faith,  whom  they  bitterly  reproached  for  concealing 
his  belief.  In  Calabria,  in  1530,  it  was  estimated  that  they  num- 
bered ten  thousand  souls,  in  Venetia,  six  thousand.  The  fate  of 
these  poor  creatures,  after  generations  of  peaceful  existence  which 
might  well  seem  destined  to  be  perpetual,  belongs  to  a  period  be- 
yond our  present  limits,  but  the  fact  that  they  could  thus  prosper 
and  increase  shows  how  rusty  had  grown  the  machinery  of  the 
Inquisition,  and  how  incapable  had  become  its  officials.* 

It  only  remains  for  us  to  note  cursorily  such  indications  as 
have  reached  us  of  the  activit}'-  and  condition  of  the  Inquisition  in 
the  several  provinces  of  Italy  during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries.  In  Savoy,  as  we  have  seen,  the  bitter  contest  with  the 
"Waldenses  kept  it  in  fair  working  condition,  while  it  was  gradually 
falling  into  desuetude  elsewhere,  although  in  Lombardy  it  still,  for 
a  while,  maintained  its  terrors.  We  have  a  somewhat  vague  de- 
scription of  its  sleepless  vigilance  in  1318,  in  pursuing  certain  here- 
tics who  are  described  as  Lollards — whether  Begghards  or  Wal- 
denses does  not  appear,  but  probably  the  latter,  as  we  are  told  that 
when  concealment  became  impossible  the  men  escaped  to  Bohemia, 
leaving  some  women  with  children  at  the  breast,  whereupon  the 
women  were  burned,  and  the  children  given  to  good  Catholics  to 
be  brought  up  in  the  faith.  In  1344  we  hear  of  a  great  popular 
excitement,  caused  by  the  belief  that  a  number  of  victims  of  the 
Inquisition  had  suffered  unjustly.  IMatters  went  so  far  that  the 
Imperial  Yicar,  Lucchino  Yisconti,  asked  Clement  YI.  to  order  an 

*  Filippo  de  Boni,  cp.  cit.  pp.  79-81. — Lombard,  Jean-Louis  Paschale,  pp.  29- 
33.— Perrin,  Hist,  des  Vaudois,  B.  n.  ch.  7,  10.— Comba,  La  Reforma,  I.  269.— Ve- 
gezzi-Ruscalla,  Rivista  Contemporanea,  1862. — Catnerarii  Hist.  Frat.  Orthodox. 
p.  120. 


270  ITALY. 

investigation,  which  was  duly  held,  though  we  do  not  know  the 
result.  It  was  possibly  the  feeling  thus  aroused  which  led,  in  134G, 
to  the  murder  in  the  Milanese  of  a  Franciscan  inquisitor  conspicu- 
ous for  his  persecuting  zeal.  The  perpetual  troubles  during  the 
century  between  the  Holy  See  and  the  Visconti  cannot  but  have 
greatly  interfered  with  the  efficiency  of  persecution.  In  the  col- 
lected statutes  of  the  Dukes  of  Milan  from  1343  to  1495  there  is 
no  allusion  of  any  kind  to  the  Inquisition,  or  to  the  punishment  of 
heretics.  There  is,  however,  on  record  a  decree  of  1388  placing 
the  civil  officials  at  the  service  of  the  Inquisition,  but  it  enforces 
the  conditions  of  the  Clementines,  which  require  episcopal  consent 
to  the  use  of  torture  and  harsh  prison,  and  to  the  final  sentence. 
It  moreover  threatens  inquisitors  with  punishment  for  using  their 
office  to  extort  money  or  gratify  malice ;  and  it  further  signifi- 
cantly commands  them  not  to  abuse  the  privilege  of  armed  fa- 
miliars, or  to  unnecessarily  multiply  their  officials.  How  the 
pohtical  passions  of  the  time  hindered  the  functions  of  the  Holy 
Office  is  seen  in  the  case  of  Fra  Ubertino  di  Carleone,  a  bustling 
Franciscan,  subsequently  Bishop  of  Lipari,  who,  about  1360,  was 
accused  of  heresy  by  the  Inquisitor  of  Piacenza.  He  at  once  pro- 
claimed that  his  GhibeUinism  was  the  motive  of  the  prosecution, 
and  aroused  the  factions  of  the  city  to  a  tumult,  under  cover  of 
which  he  escaped.* 

Inquisitors,  indeed,  continued  to  be  regularly  appointed,  and  to 
perform  such  of  their  functions  as  they  could,  but  the  decline  in 
their  usefulness  is  shown  by  one  of  the  earhest  acts  of  Martin  V., 
in  1417,  before  leaving  Constance,  in  commissioning  the  Observan- 
tine  Franciscan,  Giovanni  da  Capistrano,  as  a  special  inquisitor 
against  the  heretics  of  Mantua.  From  this  time,  in  fact,  when 
any  effective  effort  against  heresy  was  called  for,  the  regular 
machinery  of  the  Inquisition  was  no  longer  relied  upon.  It  seems 
to  have  been  regarded  as  effete  for  aU  the  purposes  for  which  it  had 
been  instituted,  and  special  appointments  were  necessary  of  men 
devoted  to  the  work,  such  as  Capistrano  and  his  friend  Giacomo 


•  Bremond  in  Ripoll  11.  139.  —  Raynald.  ann.  1344,  No.  9,  70.  —  Antiqua  Du- 
cum  Mediolani  Decreta,  Mediolani,  1654.  —  Albanese,  L'Inquisizione  religiosa 
nella  Repubblica  di  Venezia,  Venezia,  1875,  p.  167.— Giuseppe  Cosentino,  Archi- 
vio  Storico  Siciliano,  1885,  p.  92. 


DECLINE    OF    THE    INQUISITION.  271 

della  Marca.  Just  as  the  inquisitorial  jurisdiction  had  superseded 
the  episcopal,  so  now  both  were  overslaughed  as  insufficient.  Thus, 
in  1457,  when  a  new  heresy  sprang  up  in  Brescia  and  Bergamo 
concerning  Christ,  the  Yirgin,  and  the  Church  Militant,  infecting 
both  clergy  and  laity,  and  including  suspicion  of  sorcery,  Calixtus 
III.  ordered  his  nuncio  in  those  parts.  Master  Bernardo  del  Bosco, 
to  seize  the  heretics  and  try  them,  with  even  more  than  the  privi- 
leges of  an  inquisitor,  for  he  was  empowered  to  proceed  to  final 
judgment  and  execution  without  appeal,  leaving  it  to  his  discre- 
tion whether  he  should  call  for  advice  upon  the  inquisitors  and 
episcopal  ordinaries.  Two  years  later,  in  the  case  of  Zanino  da 
Solcia,  to  which  I  shall  recur  hereafter,  the  sentence  was  rendered 
by  the  Lombard  inquisitor,  Fra  Jacopo  da  Brescia,  but  the  exam- 
ination took  place  in  the  presence  of  Master  Bernardo  del  Bosco, 
who  moreover  received  the  abjuration  of  Zanino,  and  the  sentence 
was  sent  to  Pius  II.  and  was  modified  by  him.  The  diminution  of 
popular  respect  for  the  Inquisition  was  still  further  manifested  in 
1459,  by  the  doubts  publicly  expressed  of  the  validity  of  the  buUs 
of  Innocent  IV.  and  Alexander  IV.  authorizing  inquisitors  to 
preach  crusades  against  heretics  and  to  prosecute  for  heresy  all 
persons  and  communities  impeding  them,  so  that  Calixtus  III.  was 
obhged  to  reissue  the  authorization.* 

A  curious  case  occurring  about  this  time  illustrates  the  grow- 
ing indifference  felt  in  Lombardy  for  the  Inquisition.  In  Milan, 
about  1440,  a  learned  mathematician,  named  Araadeo  de'  Landi, 
was  accused  of  heresy  before  the  inquisitors.  During  the  progress 
of  his  trial  he  was,  to  the  great  damage  of  his  reputation,  de- 
nounced as  a  heretic  by  sundry  friars  in  their  sermons,  and  among 
others  by  Bernardino  of  Siena,  the  saintly  head  of  the  Observan- 
tines.  The  Inquisition  pronounced  him  a  good  Catholic  and  dis- 
charged him,  but  those  who  had  slandered  him  offered  no  repara- 
tion. The  acquittal  by  the  Inquisition  apparently  did  not  outweigh 
the  denunciations  of  Bernardino,  and  Amadeo  appealed  to  Euge- 
nius  IV.,  who  referred  the  matter  to  Giuseppe  di  Brippo,  with 
power  to  enforce  his  decision  with  censures.  Giuseppe  summoned 
the  detractors  to  appear  on  a  certain  day,  and  on  their  failing  to 


•  Ripoll  II.  351 ;  HI.  368.— Wadding,  ann.  1452,  No.  14.— Raynald.  aim.  1457, 
No.  90:  ann.  1459,  No.  31. 


272  ITALY 

present  themselves  condemned  Bernardino  to  make  public  retrac- 
tion under  pain  of  excommunication.  Bernardino  paid  no  heed 
to  this,  and  on  his  death  in  1444,  when  immediate  efforts  were 
made  for  his  canonization,  Amadeo  raised  great  scandal  by  pro- 
claiming that  he  had  died  in  mortal  sin  as  an  excommunicate. 
This  gratified  the  jealousy  of  the  conventual  branch  of  the  Fran- 
ciscans and  many  of  the  secular  clergy,  who  spread  the  scandal  far 
and  wide.  By  this  time,  however,  the  Observantines  were  too  in- 
fluential for  such  an  assault  upon  their  revered  vicar-general  to  be 
successful ;  and  in  1447  they  obtained  from  Nicholas  Y.  a  bull  in 
which  he  annulled  all  the  proceedings  of  Giuseppe,  ordered  every 
record  of  them  to  be  destroyed,  imposed  silence  on  the  unlucky 
Amadeo,  declared  Bernadino  to  have  acted  righteously  through- 
out, and  forbade  all  clerks,  friars,  and  others  from  indulging  in 
further  detraction  concerning  him.  I  may  add  that  the  opposition 
of  the  Conventuals  was  powerful  enough  to  postpone  until  1450  the 
canonization  of  San  Bernardino,  and  a  humorous  incident  in  the 
struggle  may  be  worth  mention.  When  the  blessed  Tommaso  of 
Florence  died  at  Rieti  in  1447,  and  immediately  began  to  corus- 
cate in  miracles,  Capistrano  hurried  thither  and  forbade  him  to  dis- 
play further  his  thaumaturgic  powers  until  Bernardino  should  be 
canonized — ^and  Tommaso  meekly  obeyed.* 

Yet,  shorn  as  the  Inquisition  had  become  of  real  effectiveness 
for  its  avowed  functions,  the  office  continued  to  be  sought,  doubt- 
less because  it  conferred  a  certain  measure  of  importance,  and  pos- 
sibly because  it  afforded  opportunity  of  illicit  gains.  Inquisitors 
were  regularly  appointed,  and  the  custom  grew  up  in  Lombardy 
that  in  each  city  where  a  tribunal  existed  vacancies  were  filled  on 
the  nomination  of  the  prior  of  the  local  Dominican  convent  with 
the  assent  of  discreet  brethren,  whereupon  the  General  Master  of 
the  Order  issued  the  commission.  In  1500  this  was  modified  by 
giving  the  Yicar-general  of  Lombardy  power  to  reject  or  ratify 
the  nomination.  The  subordinate  position  to  which  the  inquisi- 
torial office  had  faUen  is  illustrated  in  the  last  decade  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  by  Fra  Antonio  da  Brescia,  who  was  inquisitor  of 
his  native  place,  and  who  was  claimed  as  an  ornament  of  the  Do- 
minican Order,  but  his  eulogist  has  nothing  to  say  as  to  his  perse- 


•  Wadding,  ann.  1447,  No.  8, 47 ;  ami.  1450,  No.  3.— Raynald.  ann.  1446,  No.  8. 


DECLINE    IN    VENICE.  273 

cuting  heretics,  while  praising  his  pulpit  labors  in  many  of  the 
Italian  cities.* 

In  Yenice,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Inquisition  never  succeeded  in 
shaking  off  the  trammels  of  state  supervision  and  interference.  In 
what  spirit  the  State  regarded  its  relations  with  the  Holy  Office  was 
exhibited  in  1356,  when  Fra  Michele  da  Pisa,  the  Inquisitor  of  Tre- 
viso,  imprisoned  some  Jewish  converts  who  had  apostatized.  This 
was  strictly  within  his  functions,  but  the  secular  officials  inter- 
posed, forbade  his  proceeding  to  try  his  prisoners,  seized  his  fa- 
miliars, and  tortured  them  on  the  charge  of  pilfering  the  property 
of  the  accused.  These  high-handed  measures  provoked  the  liveliest 
indignation  on  the  part  of  Innocent  YI.,  but  the  repubhc  stood 
firm,  and  nothing  seems  to  have  been  gained.  In  the  correspond- 
ence which  ensued,  moreover,  there  are  allusions  to  former  trou- 
bles which  show  that  this  was  by  no  means  the  first  time  that  Fra 
Michele's  labors  had  been  impeded  by  the  secular  power.  Some- 
times, indeed,  the  Signoria  completely  ignored  the  Inquisition,  In 
1365  a  case  in  which  a  prisoner  had  blasphemed  the  Yirgin  was 
brought  before  the  Great  Council,  which  ordered  him  to  be  tried 
by  the  vicar  of  the  Bishop  of  Castello,  and  on  conviction  to  be 
banished,  thus  prescribing  the  punishment,  and  recognizing  only 
the  episcopal  jurisdiction. f 

In  1373  Yenice  was  honored  with  the  appointment  of  a  special 
inquisitor,  Fra  Ludovico  da  San-Martino,  while  Fra  Niccolo  Mucio 
of  Yenice  was  made  Inquisitor  of  Treviso.  This  led  to  some  de- 
bate about  their  partition  of  the  great  Patriarchate  of  Aquileia, 
which  extended  from  the  province  of  Spalatro  to  that  of  Milan. 
The  Patriarchate  of  Grado  (which  was  not  transferred  to  Yenice 
tin  1451)  was  adjudged  to  Ludovico,  together  with  the  see  of  Jesol. 
This  latter  place,  though  close  to  Yenice,  was  then,  we  are  told,  in 
ruins,  with  a  roofless  cathedral  serving  as  a  place  of  refuge  for 
heretics,  who  there  felt  safe  from  persecution.  This  partition  did 
not  improve  the  position  of  the  inquisitor,  whose  importance  was 
reduced  to  a  minimum.     He  seems,  in  fact,  to  be  regarded  only  as 

*  Ripoll  IV.  6,  103,  103, 158,  339.— Brev.  Hist.  Magist.  Ord.  Praedic.  (Martene 
Coll.  Ampl.  VI.  393). 

t  Wadding,  ann.  1356,  No.  12-19.— Arch.  di.  Venez.  Misti,  Cone.  X.  Vol.  VI. 
p.  26. 

II.— 18 


274  ITALY. 

a  functionary  of  the  state  police.  In  1412  the  Great  Council 
orders  him,  April  17,  to  put  an  end  to  the  performance  of  divine 
service  by  a  Greek  priest  named  Michael,  whose  celebrations  at- 
tract great  crowds,  and  also  to  banish  him,  taking  care  to  so  man- 
age the  affair  that  the  interposition  of  the  council  may  not  be  sus- 
pected ;  and  a  month  later.  May  26,  the  order  of  banishment  is 
revoked,  but  the  prohibition  of  celebration  is  maintained.  In  all 
his  proper  functions  the  inquisitor  was  overslaughed  and  disre- 
garded. In  1422  the  Council  of  Ten  appointed  a  commission  to 
examine  some  Franciscans  charged  with  sacrificing  to  demons  and 
other  abominable  practices,  and  a  month  later  they  sent  to  Martin 
v.,  requesting  powers  to  terminate  the  matter,  in  view  of  the  im- 
munities enjoyed  by  the  Mendicants.  When,  in  the  following  year, 
1423,  the  Senate  withdrew  the  pecuniary  provision  with  which  the 
State  had  always  defrayed  the  expenses  of  the  Inquisition,  they 
marked  their  sense  of  its  inutility  and  their  indifference  to  its 
power.  This  may  possibly  have  led  to  the  reunion  of  the  districts 
of  Venice  and  Treviso,  for,  in  1433  and  1434,  we  find  single  inquisi- 
tors appointed  to  both.  In  the  latter  year  the  lack  of  powder  of 
the  incumbent,  Fra  Luca  Cioni,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  when  he 
desired  to  proceed  against  Ruggieri  da  Bertona,  accused  of  heresy, 
he  was  forced  to  get  Eugenius  lY.  to  order  the  Bishop  of  Castello 
(Venice)  to  assist  him.  A  further  recognition  of  the  inefficiency 
of  the  Inquisition  is  seen  in  the  sending  of  Fra  Giovanni  da  Capis- 
trano  to  Venice  in  1437,  when  the  Jesuats  were  accused  of  heresy, 
and  he  acquitted  them,  and  again,  about  1450,  when  heretical  no- 
tions spread  there  concerning  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  soul, 
which  he  suppressed.* 

Allusion  has  been  made  in  a  former  chapter  to  the  limitation 
imposed  in  1450  by  the  Council  of  Ten  on  the  number  of  armed 
familiars  whom  the  inquisitor  might  retain,  reducing  them  to 
four,  and  in  1451  increasing  them  to  twelve,  with  instructions  to 
the  police  to  see  that  they  were  really  engaged  in  the  duties  of 
the  Holy  Office.     In  so  large  and  populous  a  district  this  suffi- 


*  Wadding,  ann.  1373,  No.  15-16;  ann.  1376,  No.  4-5;  ann.  1433,  No.  15; 
anil.  1434,  No.  4,  6  ;  ann.  1437,  No.  24-8 ;  ann.  1456,  No.  108.— Archiv.  di  Venez. 
Misti,  Cons.  X.  No.  9,  pp.  84,  85.  — Cecchetti,  La  Repubblica  di  Venezia,  etc.  I. 
18. 


DECLINE    IN    TUSCANY.  275 

ciently  shows  how  purely  nominal  were  the  functions  of  the  In- 
quisition, and  how  close  was  the  supervision  exercised  by  the 
State.  Yet  inquisitors  continued  to  be  appointed,  but  when  they 
attempted  to  exercise  any  independent  jurisdiction  we  have  seen, 
in  the  case  of  the  sorcerers  of  1521,  that  even  the  most  energetic 
interference  of  Leo  X.  could  not  induce  the  Signoria  to  waive  its 
right  of  final  decision.* 

In  Mantua,  which  formed  part  of  the  Patriarchate  of  Aquileia, 
we  hear,  in  1494,  of  an  inquisitor  who,  for  lack  of  heresies  to  sup- 
press, assailed  the  monts  deplete^  or  public  pawning  establishments, 
and  aU  who  favored  them.  These  institutions  were  founded  about 
this  period  as  a  charitable  work  for  the  purpose  of  rescuing  the 
poor  from  the  exactions  of  the  usurers  and  the  Jews.  Fra  Ber- 
nardino da  Feltre,  a  celebrated  Observantine  Franciscan,  made 
this  a  special  object  of  his  mission-work  in  the  Italian  cities,  and 
on  his  coming  to  Mantua  he  completely  silenced  his  adversaries. 
The  decline  of  visible  heresy  at  this  period,  in  fact,  is  illustrated 
in  the  very  diffuse  account  which  Luke  Wadding  gives,  year  after 
year,  of  Bernardino's  triumphant  progress  throughout  Italy  to 
caU  the  people  to  repentance,  when  cities  eagerly  disputed  with 
each  other  the  blessing  of  his  presence.  In  all  this  there  is  no 
allusion  to  any  attacks  by  him  on  heresy ;  had  there  been  any  to 
assail,  his  burning  zeal  would  not  have  suffered  it  to  enjoy  impu- 
nity.f 

In  Tuscany  the  growing  insubordination  felt  towards  the  In- 
quisition was  manifested  at  Siena,  in  1340,  by  the  enactment  of 
laws  checking  some  of  its  abuses.  Fra  Simone  Filippo,  the  inquis- 
itor, complained  to  Benedict  XII.,  who  at  once  pronounced  tliem 
null  and  void,  and  ordered  them  erased  from  the  statute-book. 
The  relations  between  the  Holy  Office  and  the  people  at  this  pe- 
riod, however,  are  more  significantly  displayed  in  a  series  of  events 
occurring  at  Florence,  of  which  the  details  chance  to  have  been 

*  Archiv.  di  Venez.  Misti,  Cons.  X.  Vol.  XIII.  p.  192 ;  Vol.  XIX.  p.  29.— Wad- 
ding, ann.  1455,  No.  97.— Mag.  Bull.  Rom.  I.  617.— Albizio,  Riposte  al  P.  Paolo 
Sarpi,  pp.  64-70. 

t  Wadding,  ann.  1494,  No.  6.— When  Fra,  Bernardo  endeavored  to  establish 
a  mont  de  piete  at  Florence  the  moneyed  interests  were  strong  enough  to  drive 
him  from  the  city  (Burlamacchi,  Vita  di  Savonarola,  Baluz.  et  Mausi  I.  557). 


276  ITALY. 

preserved.  In  Tuscany  the  triumph  of  orthodoxy  had  been  com- 
plete. A  sermon  of  Frii  Giordano  da  Rivalto,  in  1304,  asserts  that 
heresy  was  virtually  exterminated :  scarce  any  heretics  remained, 
and  they  were  in  strict  hiding.  This  is  confirmed  by  Villani,  who 
tells  us  that,  by  the  middle  of  the  century,  there  were  no  heretics 
in  Florence.  This  is  doubtless  too  absolute  an  assertion,  but  the 
existence  of  a  few  scattered  "Waldenses  and  Fraticelli  offered  scant 
excuse  for  such  an  establishment  as  the  inquisitor  was  accustomed 
to  maintain.  In  1337  the  papal  nuncio,  Bertrand,  Archbishop  of 
Embrun,  took  the  incumbent  of  the  office  severely  to  task  for  the 
abuse  of  appointing  an  excessive  number  of  assistants,  and  ordered 
him  in  future  to  restrict  himself  to  four  counsellors  and  assessors, 
two  notaries,  two  jailers,  and  twelve  ministers  or  familiars.  This 
was  by  no  means  a  small  or  inexpensive  body  of  officials ;  the  In- 
quisition's share  of  confiscations  from  the  few  poverty-stricken  her- 
etics who  could  occasionally  be  picked  up  evidently  was  insufficient 
to  maintain  such  a  corps,  and  means,  either  fair  or  foul,  must  be 
found  to  render  the  income  of  the  office  adequate  to  the  wants  of 
those  who  depended  upon  it  for  their  fortunes.  How  this  was 
done,  on  the  one  hand  by  cheating  the  papal  camera,  and  on  the 
other  by  extorting  money  on  false  charges  of  heresy  and  by  sell- 
ing to  bravoes  licenses  to  carry  arms,  has  already  been  pointed 
out.  The  former  device  was  one  which,  when  detected,  was  diffi- 
cult to  condone,  and  its  discovery  caused,  in  the  conunencement 
of  1344,  a  sudden  vacancy  in  the  Florentine  Inquisition.  The 
republic  was  in  the  habit  of  suggesting  names  to  the  Franciscan 
General  for  appointment,  and  sometimes  its  requests  were  re- 
spected. In  the  present  case  it  asked,  February  26,  that  the  Tus- 
can inquisitor,  Fra  Giovanni  da  Casale,  be  permitted  to  exercise 
his  functions  within  the  city,  but  the  suggestion  Avas  unheeded, 
and  in  March  the  post  was  given  to  Fra  Piero  di  Aquila.* 

Fra  Piero  was  a  distinguished  member  of  the  Franciscan  Or- 
der. But  two  months  earlier  he  had  been  appointed  chaplain  to 
Queen  Joanna  of  Naples,  and  his  Commentaries  on  the  Sentences 
of  Peter  Lombard  were  highly  esteemed,  receiving,  in  1480,  the 


*  Prediche  di  Frk  Giordano  da  Rivalto,  Firenze,  1831,  I.  173.  —  Wadding, 
ann.  1340,  No.  11. — Archivio  di  Firenze,  Riformagioni,  Diplomatico,  27;  Classe 
V.  No.  129,  fol.  46,  54. 


FRA    PIERO    DI    AQUILA.  277 

honor  of  an  edition  printed  at  Speier.  A  man  so  gifted  was 
warmly  welcomed,  and  the  republic  thanked  the  Franciscan  Gen- 
eral for  the  selection.  I  have  already  detailed  how  he  feU.  into 
the  same  courses  as  his  predecessor  in  cheating  the  papal  camera, 
how  he  was  prosecuted  for  this,  and  for  what  the  repubhc  offi- 
cially denounced  as  "  estorsio7ii  nefmide^''  committed  on  the  people, 
and  how,  within  two  years  after  his  appointment,  he  was  a  fugi- 
tive, not  daring  to  stand  trial.  There  is  another  phase  of  his  ac- 
tivity, however,  which  is  worth  recounting  in  some  detail,  as  it 
illustrates  perfectly  how  useful  an  instrument  was  the  Inquisition 
in  carrying  out  the  wishes  of  the  Roman  curia  in  matters  wholly 
disconnected  Avith  the  purity  of  the  faith.* 

The  Cardinal  of  Santa  Sabina,  while  visiting  various  courts  in 
the  capacity  of  papal  legate,  had  had  occasion  to  collect  large 
sums.  In  charity  to  him  we  may  assume,  what  doubtless  was  the 
truth,  that  the  money  belonged  to  the  pope,  although  it  stood  in 
the  cardinal's  name  on  the  books  of  his  bankers,  the  great  Floren- 
tine company  of  the  Acciajuoli.  In  receiving  it  the  members  of 
the  company  had  bound  themselves  jointly  and  severally  for  its 
repayment,  agreeing  to  subject  themselves  to  the  judgment  of  the 
Court  of  Auditors  of  the  Apostolic  Chamber.  In  1343  there  was 
due  the  cardinal  some  twelve  thousand  florins,  which  the  Accia- 
juoh  were  unable  to  pay.  A  commercial  and  financial  crisis  had 
paralyzed  the  commerce  and  industries  of  the  city.  Its  bankers 
had  advanced  vast  sums  to  Edward  III.  of  England  and  to  Eobert 
the  Good  of  Naples,  and  clamored  in  vain  for  repayment.  The 
Lombard  war  had  exhausted  the  pubhc  treasury  and  the  whole 
community  was  bankrupt.  Not  only  the  Acciajuoli,  but  the 
Bardi,  the  Peruzzi,  and  other  great  banking-houses  closed  their 
doors,  and  ruin  stared  the  Florentines  in  the  face.  There  was 
at  least  one  creditor,  however,  who  was  resolved  to  have  his 
money.f 

On  October  9, 1343,  Clement  VI.  wrote  to  the  repubUc,  stat- 
ing the  claim  of  the  cardinal  and  ordering  the  Signoria  to  compel 


*  Wadding.  T.  III.  App.  p.  3.  —  Ughelli,  Italia  Sacra,  Ed.  1659,  II.  1075.— 
Archiv.  di  Firenze,  Riformag.  Classe  v.  No.  129,  fol.  55. 

t  Archiv.  di  Firenze,  Riformag.  Atti  Pubblici,  Lib.  xvi.  de'  Capitolari,  fol. 
15.— Villani  Chron.  xi.  138 ;  xii.  55,  58. 


278  ITALY. 

the  Acciajuoli  to  pay  it.  Under  the  circumstances  this  was  clearly 
impossible,  but  judgment  against  the  debtors  had  been  rendered 
by  the  auditors  of  the  papal  camera.  This  was  enough  to  bring 
the  affair  within  the  sphere  of  spiritual  jurisdiction,  and  authority 
was  sent  to  the  inquisitor  to  execute  the  sentence,  calling  in  the 
aid  of  the  secular  arm,  and,  if  necessary,  laying  an  interdict  on  the 
city.  The  matter  dragged  on  until,  Kovember  23, 1345,  Fra  Piero 
appeared  before  the  Gonfaloniero  and  the  Priors  of  the  Arts,  and 
summoned  them  to  imprison  the  debtors  until  payment,  under 
pain  of  excommunication  and  interdict;  whereupon  the  magis- 
trates responded  that,  out  of  reverence  for  the  pope  and  respect 
for  the  inquisitor  and  to  obhge  the  cardinal,  they  would  lend  the 
aid  of  the  secular  arm.  Still  the  money  was  not  forthcoming,  and 
although  such  assets  of  the  Acciajuoh  as  could  be  seized  were  de- 
livered to  Fra  Piero,  and  security  was  given  for  the  balance,  he 
held  the  whole  community  responsible  for  the  debt  of  a  few  of 
the  citizens.  The  discussion  became  angry,  and  when  the  inquis- 
itor, in  violation  of  a  law  of  the  republic,  committed  the  indiscre- 
tion of  arresting  Salvestro  Baroncelli,  a  member  of  the  bankrupt 
company,  as  he  was  leaving  the  palace  of  the  Priors  of  the  Arts, 
his  three  familiars  who  had  committed  the  offence  were,  in  com- 
pliance with  a  savage  statute,  punished  with  banishment  and  the 
loss  of  the  right  hand. 

All  this  did  not  extract  the  money  from  the  bankrupts,  and 
Fra  Piero  laid  the  city  under  interdict,  but  both  the  clergy  and 
people  refused  to  observe  it.  The  churches  remained  open  and 
the  rites  of  religion  continued  to  be  celebrated,  leading  to  a  fresh 
series  of  prosecutions  against  the  bishop  and  priests.  Inside  the 
walls  the  Florentines  might  disregard  the  censures  of  the  Church, 
but  a  commercial  community  could  not  afford  to  be  cut  off  from 
intercourse  with  the  world.  Her  citizens  and  their  goods  were 
scattered  in  every  trade-centre  in  Christendom,  and  were  virtually 
outlawed  by  the  interdict.  This  was  the  reason  alleged  by  the 
priors  when,  June  14,  1346,  they  humbled  their  pride  and  sent 
commissioners  to  Clement  authorized  to  bind  the  republic  to  pay 
the  debt  of  the  Acciajuoli  to  the  cardinal,  not  exceeding  seven 
thousand  florins,  in  eight  months.  Their  submission  was  gra- 
ciously received,  and,  February  28, 1347,  the  pope  ordered  the  in- 
terdict removed,  cautiously  providing,  however,  for  its  ipso  facta 


PIERO    DI    AQUiLA.  279 

renewal  in  case  the  obligation  for  six  thousand  six  hundred  florins 
was  not  met  at  maturity.* 

Meanwhile  another  scene  of  the  comedy  was  developing  itself. 
In  its  contest  with  Fra  Piero  the  republic  had  not  stood  solely  on 
the  defensive.  Piero,  papal  nuncio  at  Lucca,  who  had  in  charge 
the  prosecutions  against  the  inquisitors  for  embezzling  the  sums 
due  to  the  camera,  had  appointed  as  his  deputy  in  Florence,  Mc- 
colo,  Abbot  of  Santa  Maria,  who  proceeded  against  Fra  Piero  on 
that  charge,  to  which  the  Signoria  added  the  accusation,  sustained 
by  abundant  testimony,  of  extorting  from  citizens  large  sums  of 
money  by  fraudulent  prosecutions  for  heresy.  By  March  16, 1346, 
the  Signoria  was  asking  the  appointment  of  Fra  Michele  di  Lapo 
as  his  successor.  Fra  Piero  was  a  fugitive,  and  refused  to  return 
and  stand  his  trial  when  legaUy  cited  and  tendered  a  safe-conduct. 
After  due  delay,  in  1347,  the  Abate  Mccolo,  being  armed  with 
papal  authority,  declared  him  in  default  and  contumacious,  and 
then  proceeded  to  excommunicate  him.  The  excommunication 
was  published  in  all  the  churches  of  Florence,  and  Fra  Piero  was 
thus  cut  off  from  the  faithful  and  abandoned  to  Satan.  He  could 
afford  to  regard  all  this  with  calm  philosophy.  His  success  in  col- 
lecting the  cardinal's  money  entitled  him  to  reward,  and  the  booty 
of  seven  thousand  florins  which  he  had  personally  carried  off  from 
Florence  as  the  results  of  his  two  years'  inquisitorial  career,  could 
doubtless  be  used  to  advantage.  While  Niccolo  was  vainly  citing 
him,  he  was  promoted,  February  12,  1347,  to  the  episcopate  of 
Sant-Angeli  de'  Lombard!,  and  his  excommunication  was  answered, 
June  29,  1348,  by  his  translation  to  the  presumably  preferable  see 
of  Trivento.  All  that  the  Florentines  could  do  was  to  petition  re- 
peatedly that  in  future  inquisitors  should  be  selected  from  among 
their  own  citizens,  who  would  be  less  hkely  than  strangers  to  be 
guilty  of  extortions  and  scandals.     Their  request  was  respected  at 


*  Archiv.  delle  Riformag.  Atti  Pubblici,  Lib.  xvi.  de'  Capitolari,  fol.  22; 
Classe  V.  No.  129,  fol.  62  sqq. — Archiv.  Diplomatico  xxxvii.,  xxxviii.,  xl.,  xli., 
TTJT. — Villani,  xii.  58. 

The  amount  involved  was  not  small.  The  revenue  of  Florence  at  this  period 
was  only  three  hundred  thousand  florins  (Sismondi,  Rep.  Ital.  ch.  36),  and  Flor- 
ence was  one  of  the  richest  states  in  Europe.  Villani  (xi.  92)  boasts  that  France 
alone  enjoyed  a  larger  revenue  ;  that  of  Naples  was  less,  and  the  three  were  the 
wealthiest  in  Christeniloiu. 


280  ITALY. 

least  in  1354,  when  a  Florentine,  Fra  Bernardo  de'  Guastoni,  was 
appointed  Inquisitor  of  Tuscany.* 

This  was  not  likely  to  be  effective,  and  the  Signoria  made  a 
more  promising  effort  at  self-protection  by  passing  various  laws 
imitated  from  those  adopted  not  long  before  at  Perugia.  To  limit 
the  abuse  of  selling  licenses  to  bear  arms,  the  inquisitor,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  restricted  to  employing  six  armed  famihars.  More- 
over, it  was  decreed  that  no  citizen  could  be  arrested  without  the 
participation  of  the  podesta,  who  was  required  to  seize  all  per- 
sons designated  to  him  by  the  bishop — the  inquisitor  not  being 
alluded  to — which  would  seem  to  leave  small  opportunity  for  in- 
dependent action  by  the  latter,  especially  as  he  was  deprived  of 
his  private  jail  and  was  ordered  to  send  all  prisoners  to  the  public 
prison.  He  was  further  prohibited  from  inflicting  pecuniary  pun- 
ishments, and  all  whom  he  condemned  as  heretics  were  to  be 
burned.  This  was  revolutionary  in  a  high  degree,  and  did  not 
tend  to  harmonize  the  relations  between  the  republic  and  the  pa- 
pacy. The  desperate  quarrel  between  them  which  arose  in  1375 
was  caused  by  pohtical  questions,  but  it  was  embittered  by  troubles 
arising  from  the  Inquisition,  especially  as  a  demand  made  by  In- 
nocent YI.,  in  1355,  for  a  revision  of  their  statutes  remained  un- 
heeded. In  13Y2  efforts  were  made  to  obtain  the  removal  of  Fra 
Tolomeo  da  Siena,  the  Inquisitor  of  Tuscany,  who  was  exceedingly 
unpopular,  but  Gregory  XI.  expressed  the  fullest  confidence  in  him. 
and  ordered  him  to  be  protected  by  the  Yicar-general,  Filippo, 
Bishop  of  Sabina.  Yet  the  pope  probably  yielded,  for  I  find  in 
13Y3  that  Fra  Piero  di  Ser  Lippo,  who  had  already  served  as  Tus- 
can inquisitor  in  13Y1,  was  again  appointed  to  replace  a  certain 
Fra  Andrea  di  Ricco.  "With  some  intervals  Fra  Piero  served  until 
at  least  1384,  and  he  proved  no  more  disposed  than  his  predeces- 
sors to  yield  to  the  resistance  which  the  methods  of  the  Inquisition 
inevitably  provoked  in  the  free  Itahan  cities.  Pistoia  had  fol- 
lowed the  example  of  Florence  in  endeavoring  to  protect  its  cit- 
izens by  municipal  statutes,  and  in  1375  it  was  duly  placed  under 
interdict  and  its  citizens  were  excommunicated.    At  the  same  time 


*  Archiv.  delle  Riformag.  Classe  ix.,  Distinzione  i.  No.  39;  Classe  v.  No. 
129,  fol.  62  sqq. ;  Prov.  del  Convento  di  S.  Croce,  23  Ott.  1354.— Villani,  xir.  58. 
— Ughelli  VII.  1015. 


INSUBORDINATION    IN    TUSCANY.  281 

Fra  Piero  complained  of  Florence  as  impeding  the  free  action  of 
the  Inquisition,  and  Gregory  at  once  ordered  the  Signoria  to  abro- 
gate the  obnoxious  statutes.  No  attention  was  paid  to  these  com- 
mands by  Florence,  and  when  the  rupture  came  the  Florentine 
mob  expressed  its  feelings  by  destroying  the  inquisitorial  prison 
and  driving  the  inquisitor  from  the  cit}^.  It  was  also  alleged  that 
in  the  disturbances  a  monk  named  Niccolo  was  tortured  and  buried 
ahve.  These  misdeeds,  although  denied  by  the  Signoria,  were  al- 
leged as  a  justification  of  the  terrible  buU  of  March  31,  13T6,  ful- 
minated against  Florence  by  Gregory,  In  this  he  not  only  ex- 
communicated and  interdicted  the  city,  but  specially  outlawed  the 
citizens,  exposing  their  property  wherever  found  to  seizure,  and 
their  persons  to  slavery.  This  shocking  abuse  was  the  direct  out- 
growth of  the  long  series  of  legislation  against  heresy,  and  was 
sanctioned  by  the  pubhc  law  of  the  period ;  everywhere  through- 
out Christendom  the  goods  of  Florentines  were  seized  and  the 
merchants  were  glad  to  beg  their  way  home,  stripped  of  all  thej^ 
possessed.  Not  all  were  so  fortunate,  as  some  pious  monarchs, 
like  Edward  III.,  in  addition  reduced  them  to  servitude.  No  com- 
mercial community  could  long  endure  a  contest  waged  after  this 
fashion,  and,  as  before,  Florence  was  compelled  to  submit.  In  the 
peace  signed  July  28,  1378,  the  repubUc  agreed  to  annul  all  laws 
restricting  the  Inquisition  and  interfering  with  the  hberties  of  the 
Church,  and  it  authorized  a  papal  commissioner  to  expunge  them 
from  the  statute-book.  The  Great  Schism,  however,  weakened  for 
a  time  the  aggressive  energy  of  the  papacy,  and  much  of  the  ob- 
noxious legislation  reappears  in  the  revised  code  of  1415.* 

The  career  of  Tommasino  da  Foligno,  who  died  in  1377,  has 


*  Archiv.  delle  Riformag.  Classe  ii.  Distinz.  I.  No.  14.— Archiv.  Diplom. 
Lxxviii.-ix.,  Lxxx.-i. ;  Prov.  del  Convento  di  S.  Croce,  1371  Febb.  18,  Ott.  8,  14  ; 
1372,Marz.l5;  1375,Marz.9;  1380,  Genn.  12  ;  1380,Dic.  1;  1381, Nov.  18;  1383, 
Lugl.  12;  1384,  Die.  13. — Werunsky  Excerptt.  ex  Registt.  Clement.  VI.  et  Innoc. 
VI.  p.  95.— Villani,  xii.  58.— Wadding,  ann.  1372,  No.  35;  ann.  1375,  No.  32.— 
Raynald.  ann.  1375,  No.  13-17 ;  ann.  1376,  No.  1-5.— Poggii  Hist.  Florcntin.  Lib. 
II.  ann.  1376.— A  document  of  1374  (Archiv.  Fior.  Prov.  S.  Croce.  1374,  Nov.  17) 
shows  that  Fra  Piero  di  Ser  Lippo,  at  that  time  Inquisitor  of  Florence,  was  de- 
fendant in  an  action  brought  against  him  in  the  papal  curia  by  the  Dominican 
Fra  Simone  del  Pozzo,  Inquisitor  of  Naples,  in  which  Fra  Piero  seems  to  have 
obtained  what  was  equivalent  to  a  nonsuit. 


-882  ITALY. 

Interest  for  us,  not  only  as  illustrating  the  activity  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion of  the  period,  but  also  from  the  curious  parallelism  which  it 
■affords  with  that  of  Savonarola.  He  was  one  of  the  prophets,  like 
St.  Birgitta  of  Sweden,  St.  Catharine  of  Siena,  and  the  Friends  of 
God  in  the  Rhinelands,  who  were  called  forth  by  the  untold  mis- 
eries then  afflicting  mankind.  A  tertiary  of  St.  Francis,  he  had 
practised  for  three  years  the  greatest  austerities  as  an  anchorite, 
when  God  summoned  him  forth  to  preach  repentance  to  the  war- 
ring factions  whose  savage  quarrels  filled  every  city  in  the  land 
with  wretchedness.  Like  the  other  contemporary  prophets,  he 
spared  neither  clerk  nor  layman ;  and  his  bitter  animadversions 
at  Perugia  on  the  evil  life  of  Gerald,  Abbot  of  Marmoutiers,  papal 
vicar  for  the  States  of  the  Church,  may  perhaps  account  for  his 
subsequent  rough  handling  by  the  Inquisition.  Gifted  with  mi- 
raculous power,  as  well  as  with  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  he  wan- 
dered from  town  to  town,  proclaiming  the  wrath  of  God,  and  fore- 
telUng  misfortunes  which,  in  the  existing  state  of  society,  were 
almost  sure  to  come  to  pass.  To  convince  the  incredulous  at 
Siena,  on  a  midsummer  day  he  predicted  a  frost  for  the  morrow. 
When  it  duly  came  he  was  accused  of  sorcery,  seized  by  the  In- 
quisition, and  tortured  nearly  to  death,  but  he  w^as  discharged 
when  a  miracle  established  his  innocence  and  healed  the  wounds 
of  the  torture-chamber.  After  an  intermediate  pilgrimage  to  far- 
off  Compostella,  his  preaching  at  Florence  excited  so  much  antago- 
nism that  again  he  was  arrested  by  the  Inquisition,  cast  into  a  dun- 
geon, and  kept  three  days  without  food  or  drink,  to  be  finally 
discharged  as  insane.  After  his  death  at  Foligno,  unsuccessful 
attempts  were  made  to  procure  his  canonization,  and  he  long  re- 
mained an  object  of  local  veneration  and  worship.* 

During  the  fifteenth  century  the  Inquisition  in  central  Italy 
subsided  into  the  same  unimportance  that  we  have  witnessed  else- 
where. The  effect  of  the  Great  Schism  in  reducing  the  respect 
felt  for  the  papacy  was  especially  felt  in  Italy,  and  the  papal  of- 
ficials lost  nearly  all  power  of  enforcing  obedience,  although  the 
Inquisition  at  Pisa,  when  it  was  strengthened  by  the  presence  of 
the  council  held  there  in  1409,  took  its  revenge  on  a  man  named 
Andreani,  whom  it  burned  for  the  crime  of  habitually  and  public- 


*  Wadding,  ann.  1377,  No.  4-23. 


DECLINE  OF   THE    INQUISITION.  283 

ly  ridiculing  it.  "When  the  schism  was  healed  at  Constance,  one 
of  the  earliest  efforts  of  Martin  Y.  was  directed  against  the  Frati- 
celli,  whose  increase  in  the  Roman  province  he  especially  depre- 
cated. In  his  bull  on  the  subject,  IS'ovember  14,  1418,  he  com- 
plained that  when  inquisitors  endeavored  to  exercise  their  oflBce 
against  the  heretics  the  latter  would  claim  the  jurisdiction  of  some 
temporal  lord  and  then  threaten  and  insult  their  persecutors,  so 
that  the  latter  were  afraid  to  perform  their  functions.  Martin's 
only  remedy  was  practically  to  supersede  the  inquisitors  by  special 
appointments,  and  this  naturally  sank  the  institution  to  a  deeper 
degradation.  Thus  in  1424,  when  there  were  three  Fraticelli  to 
be  tried  in  Florence,  Martin  placed  the  matter  in  the  hands  of 
Fra  Leonardo,  a  Dominican  professor  of  theology.  Still  the  office 
of  inquisitor  continued  to  be  sought  and  appointments  to  be  made 
with  more  or  less  regularity,  from  motives  which  can  easily  be 
conjectured ;  but  of  activity  against  heresy  there  is  scarce  a  trace. 
How  unimportant  its  functions  had  become  in  Bologna  may  be 
gathered  from  the  fact  that  in  1461  the  inquisitor,  Gabriele  of 
Barcelona,  was  sent  to  Rome  by  his  superiors  to  teach  theology  in 
the  convent  of  Minerva,  when  Pius  II.  authorized  him  to  appoint 
a  vicar  to  discharge  his  duties  during  his  absence.  Ten  years 
afterwards  the  Bolognese  inquisitor,  Fra  Simone  da  N"ovara,  was 
fortunate  enough  to  lay  hands  on  a  man  named  Guizardo  da  Sas- 
suolo,  who  was  suspected  of  heresy.  So  completely  were  such 
proceedings  forgotten  that  he  felt  obliged  to  apply  for  instructions 
to  Paul  II.,  who  congratulated  him  on  the  capture,  ordered  him 
to  proceed  according  to  the  canons,  and  desired  the  episcopal  vicar 
to  co-operate.  Heretics  evidently  had  grown  scarce,  and  the  in- 
quisitorial functions  had  fallen  into  desuetude.* 

In  Rome,  when  there  really  was  a  heresiarch  to  condemn,  there 


•  Tamburini,  Storia  Gen.  dell'  Inquisizione,  II.  433-6. — Raynald.  ann.  1418, 
No.  11. — Archiv.  di  Firenze,  Prov.  S.  Maria  Novella,  1434,  Ap.  24. — Wadding, 
ann.  1437,  No.  33;  ann.  1438,  No.  26;  ann.  1439,  No.  57;  ann.  1440,  No.  26  ;  ann. 
1441,  No.  61;  ann.  1452,  No.  30;  ann.  1471,  No.  11;  ann.  1496,  No.  7.— RipoU 
VII.  89,  100. 

Fra  Gabriele,  the  Inquisitor  of  Bologna,  in  the  same  year,  1461,  in  which  he 
was  sent  to  Rome,  expended  twenty-three  lire  ten  sol.  in  having  a  copy  made  of 
Eymerich'3  Directorium  Inquisitionis.—'Deni&e,  Archiv  far  Litteratur-  etc.  1885, 
p.  144. 


284  ITALY. 

was  no  Inquisition  at  hand  to  perform  the  duty.  In  the  proceed- 
ings against  TiUther  there  is  no  trace  of  its  intervention.  The  bull 
Exsurge  JDomlne,  June  15,  1520,  contains  no  allusion  to  his  doc- 
trines having  heen  examined  by  it;  when  tliey  were  publicly  con- 
demned, June  12, 1521,  the  ceremony  was  performed  by  the  Bishop 
of  Ascoli,  Auditor  of  the  Kota,  and  Silvestro  Prierias,  Master  of  the 
Sacred  Palace,  while  the  sentence  which  consigned  his  elFigy  and 
his  books  to  the  flames  was  pronounced  by  Fra  Cipriano,  professor 
in  the  College  of  Sacred  Theology.  It  was  perhaps  the  most  mo- 
mentous amto  defe  that  has  ever  been  celebrated,  but  the  Inquisi- 
tion can  boast  of  no  participation  in  it.* 

In  the  Two  Sicilies  the  Inquisition  dragged  on  a  moribund  exist- 
ence. Letters  of  King  Robert  in  1331  and  1335  and  of  Joanna  I. 
in  1342  and  1343  show  that  inquisitors  continued  to  be  appointed 
and  to  receive  the  royal  exequatur,  but  they  were  limited  to  mak- 
ing fifty  arrests  each,  and  record  of  these  was  required  to  be  entered 
in  the  royal  courts ;  they  had  no  jails,  and  the  royal  officials  re- 
ceived their  prisoners  and  tortured  them  when  called  upon.  The 
Jews  appear  to  be  the  main  object  of  inquisitorial  activity,  and 
this  can  only  have  been  halting,  for  in  1344  Clement  VI.  orders 
his  legate  at  Kaples,  Aymerico,  Cardinal  of  S.  Martino,  to  punish 
condignly  aU  apostate  Jews,  as  though  there  were  no  Inquisition 
at  work  there.  Yet  in  1362  there  were  three  inquisitors  in  Na- 
ples, Francesco  da  Messina,  Angelo  Cicerello  da  Monopoli,  and 
Ludovico  da  Xapoli,  who  took  part  in  the  trial  of  the  rebellious 
Luigi  di  Durazzo.  Still,  when  efforts  were  to  be  made  against  the 
FraticeUi,  Urban  V.,  in  1368,  deemed  it  necessary  to  send  a  special 
inquisitor,  Fra  Simone  del  Pozzo,  to  Naples.  Although  his  juris- 
diction extended  over  the  island  of  Sicily,  Gregory  XI.,  in  1372, 
when  informed  that  the  relics  of  the  FraticeUi  were  venerated 
there  as  those  of  saints,  ordered  the  prelates  to  put  a  stop  to  it, 
as  though  he  had  no  inquisitor  to  caU  upon.  Yet  Fra  Simone 
was  there  in  that  year,  and  had  a  theological  disputation  with  Fra 
ISTiccolo  di  Girgenti,  a  learned  Franciscan  who  had  been  provincial 
of  his  Order.  The  question  turned  upon  some  scholastic  subtle- 
ties respecting  the  three  persons  of  the  Trinity,  and  as  each  dis- 


•  Paramo  de  Orig.  OflBce  S.  Inq.  p.  113. 


THE    TWO    SICILIES.  285 

putant  claimed  the  victory,  Simone  proceeded  to  settle  the  matter 
by  secretly  prosecuting  his  antagonist  for  heresy.  Niccolo  got 
wind  of  this  and  at  once  appealed  to  Rome,  before  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Palermo,  demanding  his  apostoli — an  appeal  which  Si- 
mone pronounced  frivolous.  The  revelations  made  by  Niccolo  as 
to  his  antagonists  present  a  most  dismal  picture  of  the  internal 
condition  of  the  Church  at  the  time,  although  Fra  Simone's  learn- 
ing and  ascetic  life  won  him  the  popular  reputation  of  a  saint, 
and  he  obtained  the  bishopric  of  Catania,  becoming  an  important 
poHtical  personage.  In  1373  Frederic  III.  issued  letters  to  all  the 
royal  officials  ordering  them  to  lend  all  aid  to  him  and  to  his 
famiUars,  and  the  Inquisition  seems  to  have  been  firmly  estab- 
lished, with  prisons  of  its  own.  In  1375  we  find  Gregory  apply- 
ing to  the  king  for  the  confiscations,  and  procuring  from  the  reve- 
nues of  Palermo  an  appropriation  of  twelve  ounces  of  gold,  to  be 
applied  to  the  extermination  of  heresy.  In  this  recrudescence  of 
persecution  the  Jews  appear  to  have  been  the  principal  victims. 
They  appealed  to  Frederic,  who  in  the  same  year,  1375,  issued  let- 
ters severely  blaming  the  inquisitors  and  ordering  that  in  future 
their  prisoners  should  be  confined  only  in  the  royal  jails ;  that 
civil  judges  should  assist  in  their  decisions,  and  that  an  appeal 
should  lie  to  the  High  Court.  This  was  imposing  serious  limita- 
tions on  inquisitorial  jurisdiction,  but  no  reclamation  against  it 
appears  to  have  been  made.  In  Naples,  letters  of  Charles  III.,  is- 
sued in  1382  to  Fra  Domenico  di  Astragola  and  Fra  Leonardo  di 
Napoli,  show  that  inquisitors  continued  to  be  appointed.  In  1389 
Boniface  IX,  seems  to  unite  Naples  with  Sicily  by  appointing  Fra 
Antonio  Traverso  di  Aversa  as  inquisitor  on  both  sides  of  the 
Faro ;  but  in  1391  another  brief  of  the  same  pope  alludes  to  the 
Inquisition  of  Sicily  having  become  vacant  by  the  death  of  Fra 
Francesco  da  Messina,  and  as  there  is  customaril}'^  but  one  inquisi- 
tor there  he  fills  the  vacancy  by  the  appointment  of  Fra  Simone 
da  Amatore.  Fra  Simone  had  a  somewhat  stormy  career.  Al- 
ready, in  1392,  he  was  replaced  by  Fra  Giuliano  di  Mileto,  after- 
wards Bishop  of  Cefalii,  but  seems  to  have  regained  his  position, 
for  in  1393  he  was  obliged  by  King  Martin  to  refund  moneys  ex- 
torted from  some  Jews  whom  he  had  prosecuted  for  holding  ilhcit 
relations  with  Christian  women,  and  was  told  not  to  interfere 
with  matters  beyond  his  jurisdiction.     Engaging  in  treasonable 


286  ITALY. 

intrigues,  he  was  driven  from  the  island,  and  in  1397  we  find  him 
acting  as  papal  legate  and  provincial  in  Germany.  In  1400  he 
obtained  his  pardon  from  King  Martin,  and  was  allowed  to  reside 
in  Syracuse,  but  was  strictly  forbidden  from  exercising  the  office 
of  inquisitor.  Meanwhile,  in  1395,  we  hear  of  Guglielmo  di  Gir- 
genti  as  inquisitor,  and  in  1397,  of  Matteo  di  Catania,  a  sentence 
by  whom  in  that  year,  fining  a  Jew  and  his  wife  in  forty  ounces, 
was  confirmed  by  the  king,  showing  that  the  Inquisition  con- 
tinued to  be  subordinated  to  the  civil  power.  Fra  Matteo  was 
inquisitor  on  both  sides  of  the  Faro,  for  a  royal  letter  of  1399  de- 
scribes him  as  such,  and  orders  obedience  rendered  to  his  vicar, 
while  another  of  1403  shows  that  he  stiU  retained  the  position. 
A  royal  decree  of  1402  specially  provides  for  Jews  an  appeal  to 
the  king  from  all  inquisitorial  sentences,  thus  continuing  what 
had  long  been  the  practice.  In  1415  royal  letters  confirming  the 
appointment  of  Fra  Antonio  de  Pontecorona,  others  of  1427  in 
favor  of  Fra  Benedetto  da  Perino,  and  of  1446,  in  favor  of  Fra 
Andrea  de  la  Pascena,  show  that  the  organization  was  maintained, 
but  all  sentences  were  required  to  be  transmitted  to  the  viceroy, 
who  submitted  them  to  a  royal  judge  before  they  were  valid. 
Thus,  in  1451,  King  Alfonso  confirmed  a  fine  of  ten  thousand 
florins,  levied  upon  the  Jews  as  a  punishment  for  their  usuries 
and  other  offences.* 

On  the  mainland  we  have  seen  proof  of  the  decay  of  the  In- 
quisition in  the  undisturbed  growth  of  the  Waldensian  communi- 
ties, and  the  complete  breaking-down  of  its  machinery  is  fairly 
illustrated  in  1427,  when  Joanna  II.  undertook  to  enforce  certain 
measures  against  the  Jews  of  her  kingdom.  Had  there  been  an 
effective  and  organized  Inquisition  she  would  have  required  no 
better  instrument  for  her  purpose ;  and  it  could  only  have  been 
the  absence  of  this  that  led  her  to  caU  in  the  indefatigable  perse- 
cutor, Fra  Giovanni  da  Capistrano,  to  whom  she  issued  a  commis- 
sion to  coerce  the  Jews  to  abandon  usury  and  to  wear  the  sign 
Tau,  as  provided  by  law.    He  was  empowered  to  decree  such  pun- 

*  MSS.  Chioccarello,  T.  vin.— Raynald.  ann.  1344,  No.  9;  ann.  1368,  No.  16; 
ann.  1372,  No.  36;  ann.  1375,  No.  26. — Tocco,  Archivio  Storico  Napolitan.  Ann. 
XII.  (1887),  Fasc.  1.  — Ripoll  II.  311,  324,  364.  — Guiseppe  Cosentino,  Archivio 
Storico  Sicilian©,  1885,  pp.  74-5,  87.  —  La  Mantia,  Dell'  Inquisizione  in  Sicilia, 
Torino,  1886,  pp.  13-15. 


THE    TWO    SICILIES.  287 

ishments  as  he  might  deem  fit,  which  were  to  be  mercilessly  in- 
flicted by  all  judges  and  other  officials,  and  he  was  moreover  to 
constrain,  under  pain  of  confiscation,  the  Jews  to  surrender  to  him 
for  cancellation  all  letters  and  privileges  granted  to  them  by 
former  monarchs.  Yet  there  was  still  a  simulacrum  of  the  In- 
quisition maintained,  for  in  the  following  year,  1428,  we  find  Mar- 
tin Y.  confirming  the  appointment  of  Fra  Niccolo  di  Camisio  as 
Inquisitor  of  Benevento,  Bari,  and  the  Capitanata.* 

Whatever  vitality  the  Inquisition  retained  was  still  more  re- 
duced when,  in  1442,  the  House  of  Aragon  obtained  the  throne  of 
Naples.  Giannone  tells  us  that  the  Aragonese  princes  rarely  ad- 
mitted inquisitors,  and,  when  they  did  so,  required  minute  reports 
as  to  their  every  official  act,  never  permitting  any  conviction  with- 
out the  participation  of  the  secular  magistrates,  followed  by  royal 
confirmation,  as  we  have  seen  to  have  been  the  case  in  Sicily. 
When,  in  1449,  Nicholas  Y.  appointed  Fra  Matteo  da  Eeggio  as 
inquisitor  to  exterminate  the  apostate  Jews  who  were  said  to  be 
numerous  throughout  the  kingdom,  the  terms  employed  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  for  some  time  the  Inquisition  had  been  prac- 
tically extinct,  although  but  two  years  before  he  had  given  a  com- 
mission to  Fra  Giovanni  da  Napoli,  and  although  subsequent  in- 
quisitors were  occasionally  appointed.f 

In  Sicily,  however,  in  1451,  the  Inquisition  obtained  fresh  vi- 
tality by  means  of  an  ingenious  device.  Fra  Enrico  Lugardi,  In- 
quisitor of  Palermo,  produced  a  most  impudent  forgery  in  the 
shape  of  a  long  and  elaborate  privilege  purporting  to  have  been 
issued  by  the  Emperor  Frederic  II.  in  1224,  ordering  all  his  Sicilian 
subjects  to  give  aid  and  comfort  to  the  "  inquisitors  of  heretical 
pravity,"  and  stating  that,  as  it  was  unfitting  that  aU  confisca- 
tions should  inure  to  the  royal  fisc  without  rewarding  the  inquisi- 
tors for  their  toils  and  perils,  the  confiscations  henceforth  should 
be  divided  equally  between  the  fisc,  the  Inquisition,  and  the  Holy 
See ;  moreover,  all  Jews  and  infidels  were  required  once  a  year 


•  Wadding.  T.  HI.  Regesta,  p.  393.— Ripoll  11.  689. 

When,  in  1447,  Nicholas  V.  issued  a  cruel  edict  subjecting  the  Jews  to  serere 
disabilities  and  humiliations,  Capistrano  was  likewise  appointed  conservator  to 
enforce  its  provisions  (Wadding,  ann.  1447,  No.  10). 

t  Giannone,  1st.  Civ.  di  Napoli,  Lib.  xxxn.  c.  5. — Wadding,  ann.  1449,  No.  13. 
—Ripoll  ni.  240, 441,  501. 


288  ITALY. 

to  supply  inquisitors  and  their  attendants,  when  in  prosecution  of 
their  duty,  with  all  necessaries  for  man  and  beast.  Though  the 
fraudulent  character  of  this  document  was  conspicuous  on  its  face, 
to  say  nothing  of  a  blunder  in  the  regnal  year  of  its  date,  the  age 
was  not  a  critical  one ;  Fra  Enrico  seems  to  have  had  no  trouble 
in  inducing  King  Alonso  to  confirm  it,  and  it  was  subsequently 
confirmed  again  in  1477  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  The  privi- 
leges which  it  conferred  were  substantial,  and  gave  fresh  impor- 
tance to  the  Inquisition,  although  its  judgments  were  still  sub- 
jected to  revision  by  the  civil  power.  When,  in  1474,  famine  led 
Sixtus  ly.  to  request  of  the  Viceroy  Ximenes  the  shipment  of  a 
large  supply  of  corn  from  Sicily  to  Rome,  he  wrote  to  the  inquisi- 
tor, Fra  Salvo  di  Cassetta,  ordering  him  to  strain  every  nerve  to 
secure  the  granting  of  the  favor.  The  inquisitor  at  that  time  was 
evidently  a  personage  of  influence,  for  Fra  Salvo  in  fact  was  also 
confessor  of  the  \iceroy.  The  central  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition 
sat  in  Palermo,  and  there  were  three  commissioners  or  deputies  in 
charge  of  the  three  "  valleys  "  of  the  island.* 

Ferdinand  the  Catholic,  in  founding  the  New  Spanish  Inquisi- 
tion, obtained  for  his  grand  inquisitor  the  power  of  nominating 
deputies  in  all  the  dependencies  of  Castile  and  Aragon.  About 
1487  Fray  Antonio  de  la  Pena  was  sent  to  Sicily  in  that  capacity, 
who  speedily  organized  the  Holy  Office  on  its  new  basis  through- 
out the  island ;  and  in  1492  an  edict  of  banishment  was  issued 
against  the  Jews,  who,  as  of  old,  were  the  chief  objects  of  perse- 
cution. On  the  mainland  there  was  more  trouble.  When,  in  1503, 
Ferdinand  acquired  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  the  Great  Captain, 
Gonsalvo  of  Cordova,  finding  the  people  excited  with  the  fear 
that  the  Spanish  Inquisition  might  be  introduced,  made  a  solemn 
compact  that  no  inquisitors  should  be  sent  thither.  The  old  rules 
were  kept  in  force ;  no  one  was  allowed  to  be  arrested  without  a 
special  royal  warrant,  and  no  inquisitor  could  exercise  any  func- 
tions without  the  confirmation  of  his  commission  by  the  royal 

*  Paramo,  pp.  197-99. — RipoU  HI.  510. — La  Mantia,  L'Inquisizione  in  Sbcilia, 
pp.  16-18. 

Giuseppe  Cosentino  says  (Archivio  Storico  Siciliano,  1885,  p.  73)  that  the 
confirmation  in  1451  by  King  Alonso  of  the  diploma  of  Frederic  II.  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  archives  of  Palermo,  but  that  the  royal  letters  of  1415  allude  to  a 
privilege  granted  by  Frederic.     See  also  La  Mantia,  pp.  8-10, 13, 15. 


NAPLES.  289 

representative.  Notwithstanding  this,  in  1504,  Diego  Deza,  the 
Spanish  inquisitor-general,  sent  to  Naples  an  inquisitor  and  a  re- 
ceiver of  confiscated  property,  with  royal  letters  ordering  them  to 
have  free  exercise  of  their  authority,  but  Gonsalvo,  who  knew  by 
how  slender  a  tenure  the  new  dynasty  held  the  allegiance  of  the 
people,  seems  not  to  have  admitted  them.  Under  the  excuse  that 
the  Jews  and  New  Christians  expelled  from  Spain  found  refuge  in 
Naples,  the  attempt  was  again  made  in  1510,  and  Andres  Palacio 
was  sent  there  as  inquisitor,  but  the  populace  rose  in  arms  and 
made  demonstrations  so  threatening  that  even  Ferdinand's  fanati- 
cism was  forced  to  give  way.  The  movements  of  the  French  in 
the  north  of  Italy  were  disquieting,  the  loyalty  of  the  NeapoMtans 
was  not  to  be  relied  upon,  and  the  inquisitor  was  withdrawn  with 
a  promise  that  no  further  effort  would  be  made  to  force  upon  the 
people  the  dreaded  tribunal.  Even  Julius  II.  recognized  the  ne- 
cessity of  this  and  assented  to  the  understanding.  The  Calabrian 
and  Apulian  Waldenses  thus  had  a  respite  until  the  progress  of 
the  Reformation  in  Italy  aroused  the  Church  to  renewed  efforts 
and  to  a  complete  reorganization  of  its  machinery  of  persecution.* 


*  Pirro,  Sicilia  Sacra,  1. 185-6. — G.  Cosentino,  loc.  cit.  p.  76. — Caruso,  Memorie 
Istoricbe  di  Sicilia,  P.  ii.  T.  i.  p.  92. — Gianuoue,  op.  cit.  Lib.  xxxii.  c.  5. — Paramo, 
pp.  191-4. — Zurita,  Hist,  del  Rey  Hernando,  Lib.  v.  c.  70 ;  Lib.  ix.  c.  36. — Mariana, 
Hist,  de  Espana,  Lib.  xxx.  c.  1. 

II.— 19 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE   SLAVIC   CATHARI. 

When  Innocent  III.  found  himself  confronted  with  the  alarm- 
ing progress  of  the  Catharan  heresy,  his  vigilant  activity  did  not 
confine  itself  to  Italy  and  Languedoc.  The  home  of  the  behef 
lay  to  the  east  of  the  Adriatic  among  the  Slavic  races.  Thence 
came  the  missionaries  who  never  ceased  to  stimulate  the  zeal  of 
their  converts,  and  every  motive  of  piety  and  of  policy  led  him  to 
combat  the  error  at  its  source.  Thus  the  field  of  battle  stretched 
from  the  Balkans  to  the  Pyrenees  along  a  front  of  over  a  thou- 
sand miles,  and  the  result  might  have  been  doubtful  but  for  the 
concentration  of  moral  and  material  forces  resulting  from  the  cen- 
tralized theocracy  founded  by  Hildebrand. 

The  contest  in  the  regions  south  of  Hungary  is  instructive  as 
an  illustration  of  the  unconquerable  persistence  of  Rome  in  con- 
ducting for  centuries  an  apparently  resultless  struggle,  undeterred 
by  defeat,  taking  advantage  of  every  opening  for  a  renewal  of  the 
strife,  and  using  for  its  ends  the  ambition  of  monarchs  and  the 
self-sacrificing  devotion  of  zealots.  A  condensed  review  of  the 
rapid  vicissitudes  of  such  a  contest  is  therefore  not  out  of  place, 
although  the  scene  of  action  lay  too  far  from  the  centres  of  Euro- 
pean life  to  have  decisive  influence  upon  the  development  of  Euro- 
pean thought  and  belief,  except  as  it  served  as  a  refuge  for  the  perse- 
cuted and  a  centre  of  orthodoxy  to  which  neophytes  could  be  sent. 

The  vast  regions  east  of  the  Adriatic  scarce  paid  more  than  a 
nominal  spiritual  allegiance  to  Rome.  A  savage  and  turbulent 
population,  conquered  by  Hungary  towards  the  end  of  the  eleventh 
century,  and  always  endeavoring  to  throw  off  the  yoke,  was  Chris- 
tian in  little  more  than  name.  Such  Christianity  as  it  boasted, 
moreover,  was  not  Latin.  The  national  ritual  was  Slavic,  in  spite 
of  its  prohibition  by  Gregory  YII.,  and  the  Roman  observance 
was  detested,  from  its  foreign  origin,  as  the  badge  of  subjugation. 


HERESY    IN    BOSNIA.  291 

The  few  Latin  prelates  and  priests  and  monks  were  encamped 
amid  a  hostile  population  to  whom  they  were  strangers  in  lan- 
guage and  manners,  and  the  dissoluteness  of  their  lives  gave  them 
no  opportunity  of  acquiring  a  moral  influence  that  might  disarm 
national  and  race  antipathies.  Under  such  circumstances  there 
was  nothing  to  hinder  the  spread  of  Catharism,  and  when  the  de- 
vastating wars  of  the  Hungarians  came  to  be  dignified  as  crusades 
for  the  extermination  of  heresy,  heresy  might  well  claim  to  be 
identified  with  patriotism.  From  the  Danube  to  Macedonia,  and 
from  the  Adriatic  to  the  Euxine,  the  Catharan  Church  was  well 
organized,  divided  into  dioceses  with  their  bishops,  and  actively 
engaged  in  mission  work.  Its  most  flourishing  province  was  Bos- 
nia, where,  at  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  it  counted  some  ten 
thousand  devoted  partisans.  Culin,  the  Ban  who  held  it  under 
the  suzerainty  of  Hungary,  was  a  Catharan,  and  so  were  his  wife 
and  the  rest  of  his  family.  Even  Catholic  prelates  were  suspected, 
not  without  cause,  of  leaning  secretly  to  the  heretic  beUef.* 

The  earUest  interference  with  heresy  occurs  at  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  century,  when  the  Archbishop  of  Spalatro,  doubtless  un- 
der impulsion  from  Innocent,  drove  out  a  number  of  Cathari  from 
Trieste  and  Spalatro.  They  found  ready  refuge  in  Bosnia,  where 
Cuhn  welcomed  them.  Vulcan,  King  of  Dalmatia,  who  had  de- 
signs upon  Bosnia,  in  1199  represented  to  Innocent  the  deplorable 
prevalence  of  heresy  there,  and  suggested  that  Emeric,  King  of 
Hungary,  should  be  urged  to  expel  the  heretics.  Innocent  there- 
upon wrote  to  Emeric,  sending  him  the  severe  papal  decretal 
against  the  Patarins  of  Yiterbo  as  a  guide  for  his  action,  and  or- 
dering him  to  cleanse  his  territories  of  heresy  and  to  confiscate  all 
heretical  property.  Culin  seems  to  have  taken  the  initiative  by 
attacking  Hungary,  but  at  the  same  time  he  tried  to  make  his 
peace  with  Kome  by  asserting  that  the  alleged  heretics  were  good 
Catholics.  He  sent  some  of  them,  with  two  of  his  prelates,  to  In- 
nocent for  examination,  and  asked  for  legates  to  investigate  the 
matter  on  the  spot.  In  1202  the  pope  accordingly  ordered  his  chap- 
lain, Giovanni  da  Casemario,  and  the  Archbishop  of  Spalatro,  to 


*  Schmidt,  Histoire  des  Cathares,  1.104-9. — Gregor.  PP.  VII.  Regist.  vii.  11. — 
Batthyani  Legg.  Eccles.  Hung.  II.  274,  289-90,  415-17.— Raynald.  anu.  120:3,  No. 
22.— Innocent.  PP.  III.  Regest.  n.  176. 


THE   SLAVIC  CATHARI. 

proceed  to  Bosnia,  where,  if  they  found  any  heretics,  including  the 
Ban  himself,  they  were  to  be  prosecuted  according  to  the  rigor  of 
the  canons.  Giovanni  successfully  accomplished  this  mission  in 
1203.  He  reported  to  Innocent  a  pledge  given  by  the  Cathari  to 
adopt  the  Latin  faith,  while,  to  insure  the  maintenance  of  religion, 
he  recommended  the  erection  of  three  or  four  additional  bishoprics 
in  the  territory  of  the  Ban,  which  were  ten  days'  journey  in  ex- 
tent and  which  yet  had  but  one  see,  of  which  the  incumbent  was 
dead.  At  the  same  time  King  Emeric  wrote  that  Giovanni  had 
brought  to  him  the  leaders  of  the  heretics,  and  he  had  found  them 
converted  to  orthodoxy.  Culin's  son  had  likewise  presented  him- 
self, and  had  entered  into  bonds  of  one  thousand  marks,  to  be  for- 
feited in  case  he  should  hereafter  protect  heretics  within  his  do- 
minions. The  triumph  of  the  Church  seemed  assured,  especially 
when,  in  the  same  year,  Calo  Johannes,  the  Emperor  of  the  Bul- 
garians, applied  to  Innocent  to  have  cardinals  sent  to  crown  him, 
and  professed  himself  in  all  things  obedient  to  the  Holy  See.'^ 

All  such  hopes  proved  fallacious.  With  the  development  of 
the  Albigensian  troubles  the  attention  of  Innocent  was  directed 
from  the  Slavs.  The  conversions  made  under  pressure  were  but 
temporary.  The  metropolitan  of  the  province,  Arringer,  Arch- 
bishop of  Ragusa,  filled  the  vacant  see  of  Bosnia  with  a  Catharan, 
and,  dying  himself  soon  after,  his  episcopal  city  became  a  nest  of 
heretics.  The  few  Catholic  priests  scattered  through  the  region 
abandoned  their  posts,  and  Catholicism  grew  virtually  almost  ex- 
tinct. In  1221  it  is  said  that  in  the  whole  of  Bosnia  there  was  not 
a  single  orthodox  preacher  to  be  heard.  Equally  disheartening 
was  the  course  of  affairs  among  the  Bulgarians.  After  Calo  Jo- 
hannes had  been  crowned  by  a  legate  from  Rome,  his  quarrels 
with  the  Latin  Emperors  of  Constantinople  led  to  a  breach,  and 
in  the  wide  territories  under  his  dominion  the  Cathari  had  full 
liberty  of  conscience. f 

At  length  the  papal  attention  was  again  directed  to  this  de- 
plorable state  of  affairs.  In  1221  Honorius  III.  sent  his  chaplain, 
Master  Aconcio,  as  legate  to  Hungary,  with  orders  to  arouse  the 
king  and  the  prelates  to  a  sense  of  their  obhgation  to  exterminate 


*  Iniioc.  PP.  III.  Regest.  ii.  176;  in.  3;  v.  103,  110;  vi.  140.  141, 142,  212. 
t  Schmidt,  1. 112-18. 


DOMINICAN    ZEAL.  293 

the  heretics  who  were  thus  openly  defiant.  On  his?  way  the  leg- 
ate paused  at  Ragusa  to  superintend  the  election  of  an  orthodox 
archbishop,  after  which  he  ordered  all  Dalmatia  and  Croatia  to 
join  in  a  crusade,  but  no  one  followed  him,  and  he  went  alone  to 
Bosnia,  where  he  died  the  same  year.  Better  results  were  promised 
by  the  ambition  of  UgoUn,  Archbishop  of  Kalocsa,  who  desired  to 
extend  his  province ;  he  proposed  to  Andreas  II.  of  Hungary  that 
he  would  lead  a  crusade  at  his  own  cost,  and  king  and  pope  prom- 
ised him  all  the  territories  which  he  should  clear  of  heretics,  but 
Ugolin  overrated  his  powers,  and  adopted  the  expedient  of  sub- 
sidizing with  two  hundred  silver  marks  the  ruler  of  Syrmia,  Prince 
John,  son  of  Margaret,  widow  of  the  Emperor  Isaac  Angelus. 
John  took  the  money  without  performing  his  promise,  though  re- 
minded of  it  by  Honorius  in  1227.  Relieved  from  apprehension, 
the  Bosnians  deposed  their  Ban  Stephen  and  replaced  him  with  a 
Catharan,  Ninoslav,  one  of  the  most  notable  personages  in  Bosnian 
history,  who  maintained  himself  from  1232  to  1250.* 

The  scale  at  length  seemed  to  turn  with  the  advent  on  the 
scene  of  the  Mendicant  Orders,  full  of  the  irrepressible  enthusiasm, 
the  disregard  of  toil  and  hardship,  and  the  tliirst  for  martyrdom 
of  which  we  have  already  seen  so  many  examples.  Behind  them 
now,  moreover,  was  Gregory  XI.,  the  implacable  and  indefatigable 
persecutor  of  heresy,  who  urged  them  forward  unceasingly.  The 
Dominicans  were  first  upon  the  ground.  As  early  as  1221  the 
Order  formed  establishments  in  Hungary,  developing  its  proselyt- 
ing energy  from  that  centre,  and  thus  taking  the  heretics  in  flank. 
The  Dominican  legend  relates  that  the  Inquisition  was  founded  in 
Hungary  by  Friar  Jackzo  (St.  Hyacinth),  an  early  member  of  the 
Order,  who  died  in  1257,  and  that  it  could  soon  boast  of  two  mar- 
tyred inquisitors.  Friar  Nicholas,  who  was  flayed  alive,  and  Friar 
John,  who  was  lapidated  by  the  heretics.  In  1233  we  hear  of  the 
massacre  of  ninety  Dominican  missionaries  among  the  Cumans, 
and  it  was  perhaps  somewhat  earlier  than  this  that  thirty -two 
were  drowned  by  the  Bosnian  heretics,  whom  they  were  seeking 
to  convert ;  but  Dominican  ardor  was  only  inflamed  by  such  inci- 


•  Potthast  No.  6612,  6725,  6802.  — Raynald.  ann.  1225,  No.  21.  — Klaic,  Ge- 
schichte  Bosniens,  nach  dem  Kroatischen  von  Ivan  v.  Bojnicic,  Leipzig,  1885,  pp. 
89-91. 


294  THE   SLAVIC  CATHARI. 

dents.  Preparations  were  made  for  systematic  work.  Tn  1232 
Gregory  ordered  his  legate  in  Hungary,  Giacopo,  Bishop  of  Pales- 
trina,  to  convert  the  Bosnians.  King  Andreas  gave  the  Banate  to 
his  son  Coloman,  Duke  of  Croatia  and  Dalmatia,  and  ordered  him 
to  assist.  Results  soon  followed.  The  Catholic  Bishop  of  Bosnia 
was  himself  infected  with  heresy,  and  excused  himself  on  the 
ground  that  he  had  ignorantly  supposed  the  Cathari  to  be  ortho- 
dox. The  Archbishop  of  Ragusa  was  cognizant  of  this,  and  had 
paid  no  attention  to  it,  so  Giacopo  transferred  Bosnia  to  Kalocsa — 
a  transfer,  however,  which  was  for  the  present  inoperative.  More 
important  was  the  conversion  of  Ninoslav,  who  abandoned  the  re- 
ligion of  his  fathers  in  order  to  avert  the  attacks  of  Coloman,  which 
were  rapidly  dismembering  his  territories.  He  was  effusively  wel- 
comed by  Gregory ;  he  gave  money  to  the  Dominicans  for  the 
building  of  a  cathedral ;  many  of  his  magnates  followed  his  exam- 
ple, and  his  kinsman,  Uban  Prijesda,  handed  his  son  to  the  Domin- 
icans as  a  hostage  for  the  sincerity  of  his  conversion.  Gregory 
was  overjoyed  at  this  apparent  success.  In  1233  he  ordered  the 
boy  restored  to  his  father ;  he  took  Bosnia  under  the  special  pro- 
tection of  the  Holy  See,  and  ordered  Coloman  to  defend  Ninoslav 
from  the  attacks  of  disaffected  heretics ;  he  deposed  the  heretic 
bishop,  and  instructed  his  legate  to  divide  the  territory  into  two 
or  three  sees,  appointing  proper  incumbents.  The  latter  measure 
was  not  carried  out,  however,  and  a  German  Dominican,  John  of 
"Wildeshausen,  was  consecrated  Bishop  of  all  Bosnia.* 

The  Legate  Giacopo  returned  to  Hungary  satisfied  that  the 
land  was  converted,  but  success  proved  fleeting.  Either  I^inoslav's 
conversion  was  feigned  or  he  was  unable  to  control  his  heretic 
subjects,  for  in  the  next  year,  1234,  we  find  Gregory  complaining 
that  heresy  was  increasing  and  rendering  Bosnia  a  desert  of  the 
faith,  a  nest  of  dragons  and  a  home  of  ostriches.  In  conjunction 
with  Andreas  he  ordered  a  crusade,  and  Coloman  was  instructed 
to  attack  the  heretics.  The  Carthusian  Prior  of  St.  Bartholomew 
was  sent  thither  to  preach  it  with  Holy  Land  indulgences,  and  by 
the  end  of  1234  Coloman  laid  Bosnia  waste  with  fire  and  sword. 


*  Monteiro,  Historia  da  Sacra  Inquisi9ao  P.  i.  Liv.  1,  c.  59. — Paramo,  p.  111. — 
Raynald.  ann.  1257,  No.  13.  —Hist.  Ord.  Praedic.  c.  8.  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VL 
338).— Ripoll  I.  70.— Klaic,  pp.  9^-4. 


CRUSADES    FROM    HUNQARY.  295 

ISTinoslav  threw  himself  heart  and  soul  with  the  Cathari,  and  the 
struggle  was  bloody  and  prolonged.  The  Legate  Giacopo  induced 
Bela  IV.  to  take  an  oath  to  extirpate  all  heretics  from  every  land 
under  his  jurisdiction,  and  the  Franciscans  hastened  to  take  a  hand 
in  the  good  work.  They  commenced  with  the  city  of  Zara,  but  the 
Archbishop  of  Zara,  instead  of  seconding  their  labors,  impeded  them, 
which  earned  for  him  the  emphatic  rebuke  of  Gregory.  Indeed, 
from  the  account  which  Yvo  of  Narbonne  gives  about  this  time 
of  the  Cathari  of  the  maritime  districts,  they  could  not  have  been 
much  disturbed  by  these  proceedings.* 

In  1235  the  crusaders  were  unlucky.  Bishop  John  lost  all  hope 
of  recovering  his  see  and  asked  Gregory  to  relieve  him  of  it,  as 
the  labors  of  war  were  too  severe  for  him  ;  but  Gregory  reproved 
his  faintheartedness,  telling  him  that  if  he  disliked  war  the  love 
of  God  should  urge  him  on.f  In  1236  the  aspect  of  affairs  im- 
proved, probably  because  Bela  IV.  had  replaced  Andreas  on  the 
throne  of  Hungary,  and  because  the  crusaders  were  energetical- 
ly aided  by  Sebislav,  Duke  of  Usora,  the  son  of  the  former  Ban 
Stephen,  who  hoped  to  recover  the  succession.  He  was  rewarded 
by  Gregory  calling  him  a  lily  among  thorns  and  the  sole  repre- 
sentative of  orthodoxy  among  the  Bosnian  chiefs,  who  were  all 
heretics.  At  last,  in  1237,  Coloman  triumphed,  but  heresy  was 
not  eradicated,  in  spite  of  his  efforts  through  the  following  years. 
In  fulfilment  of  his  request,  Gregory  ordered  the  consecration  of 
the  Dominican  Ponsa  as  Bishop  of  Bosnia,  and  soon  afterwards 
appointed  Ponsa  as  legate  for  three  years  in  order  that  he  might 
exterminate  the  remnant  of  heresy.  It  must  have  been  a  tolerably 
large  remnant,  for  in  the  same  breath  he  promised  the  protection 
of  the  Holy  See  to  all  who  would  take  the  cross  to  extirpate  it. 
In  1239  the  Provincial  Prior  of  Hungary  was  ordered  to  send  to 
the  heretic  districts  a  number  of  friars,  powerful  in  speech  and  ac- 

*  Epist.  Saec.  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  574,  601.  — Ripoll  I.  70.  —  Potthast  No.  9726, 
9733-8,  10019,  10052.— Klaic,  p.  96.— Batthyani  Legg.  Eccles.  Hung.  I.  355.— 
Matt.  Paris  ann.  1243  (Ed.  1644,  pp.  412-13). 

t  Bishop  John  succeeded  in  resigning  his  bishopric,  and  became  Grand  Mas- 
ter of  his  Order.  A  contemporary,  who  knew  him  personally,  describes  him  as 
a  man  of  apostolic  virtue,  who  distributed  in  alms  the  revenue  of  his  see,  amount- 
ing to  8000  marks,  and  performed  liis  journeys  on  foot,  with  an  ass  to  carry  his 
books  and  vestments.  After  his  death  at  Strassburg  he  slioiie  in  luiracles. — Tho- 
mae  Cantimprat.  Bonum  universale  Lib.  ii.  c.  56. 


296  THE   SLAVIC    CATHARI. 

tion,  to  consummate  the  work.  Ponsa,  though  bishop  and  legate, 
had  no  revenues  and  no  resources,  so  Gregory  ordered  paid  over 
to  him  the  moneys  collected  from  crusaders  in  redemption  of  vows, 
and  the  sum  which  Ninoslav,  during  his  interval  of  orthodoxy,  had 
given  to  found  a  cathedral.  By  the  end  of  1239  heresy  seemed  to 
be  exterminated,  but  scarce  had  Coloman  and  his  crusaders  left 
the  land  when  his  work  was  undone  and  heresy  was  as  vigorous 
as  ever.  In  1240  Ninoslav  appears  again  as  Ban,  visiting  Ragusa 
with  a  splendid  retinue  to  renew  the  old  treaty  of  trade  and  alli- 
ance. King  Bela's  energies,  in  fact,  were  just  then  turned  in  an- 
other direction,  for  Assan,  the  Bulgarian  prince,  had  declared  in 
favor  of  the  Greeks ;  his  people  therefore  were  denounced  as  here- 
tics and  schismatics,  and  Bela  was  stimulated  to  undertake  a  cru- 
sade against  him,  for  which,  as  usual.  Holy  Land  indulgences  were 
promised.  It  was  hard  to  make  head  at  once  against  so  many 
enemies  of  the  faith,  and  in  the  confusion  the  Cathari  of  Bosnia 
had  a  respite.  Still  more  important  for  them  as  a  preventive  of 
persecution  was  the  Tartar  invasion  which,  in  1241,  reduced  Hun- 
gary to  a  desert.  In  the  bloody  day  of  Flusse  Sajo  the  Hungarian 
army  was  destroyed,  Bela  barely  escaped  with  his  life,  and  Colo- 
man  was  slain.  The  respite  was  but  temporary,  however,  for  in 
1244  Bela  again  overran  Bosnia.  Ninoslav  made  his  peace  and 
the  heretics  were  persecuted,  until  1246,  when  Hungary  was  in- 
volved in  war  with  Austria,  and  promptly  they  rose  again  with 
Ninoslav  at  their  head.^ 

All  these  endeavors  to  diffuse  the  blessings  of  Christianity  had 
not  been  made  without  bloodshed.  We  have  few  details  of  these 
obscure  struggles  in  a  land  little  removed  from  barbarism,  but 
there  is  one  document  extant  which  shows  that  the  Albigensian 
crusades,  with  aU  their  horrors,  had  been  repeated  to  no  purpose. 
In  1247  Innocent  lY.,  in  making  over  the  see  of  Bosnia  to  the 
A.rchbishop  of  Kalocsa,  alludes  to  the  labors  performed  by  him 
and  his  predecessors  in  the  effort  to  redeem  it  from  heresy.  They 
had  meritoriously  devastated  the  greater  part  of  the  land ;  they 
had  carried  away  into  captivity  many  thousands  of  heretics,  with 
great  effusion  of  blood,  and  no  Httle  slaughter  of  their  own  men 


•  Potthast  No.  10323-6,  10507,  10535,  10631-9,  10688-93,  10822-4,  10842.- 
Ripoll  1. 102-4, 106-7.— Schmidt,  1. 122.— Klaic,  pp.  97-107. 


STUBBORNNESS    OF    HERESY.  297 

and  waste  of  their  substance.  In  spite  of  these  sacrifices,  as  the 
churches  and  castles  which  they  had  built  were  not  strong  enough 
to  resist  siege,  the  land  could  not  be  retained  in  the  faith ;  it  had 
wholly  relapsed  into  heresy,  and  there  was  no  hope  of  its  volun- 
tary redemption.  The  church  of  Kalocsa  had  been  thoroughly 
exhausted,  and  it  was  now  rewarded  by  placing  the  recalcitrant 
region  under  its  jurisdiction,  in  the  expectation  that  some  future 
crusade  might  be  more  fortunate.  Innocent  lY.  had,  a  few  months 
earlier,  ordered  Bela  to  undertake  a  decisive  struggle  with  the 
Cathari,  but  Mnoslav  appealed  to  him,  protesting  that  he  had 
been  since  his  conversion  a  faithful  son  of  the  Church,  and  had 
only  accepted  the  aid  of  the  heretics  because  it  was  necessary  to 
preserve  the  independence  of  the  Banate.  Moved  by  this.  Inno- 
cent instructed  the  Archbishop  of  Kalocsa  to  abstain  from  further 
persecution.  He  ordered  an  investigation  into  the  faith  and  ac- 
tions of  Ninoslav,  and  gave  permission  to  use  the  Glagolitic  writ- 
ing and  the  Slavic  tongue  in  the  celebration  of  Catholic  service, 
recognizing  that  this  would  remove  an  obstacle  to  the  propaga- 
tion of  the  faith.  Ninoslav's  last  years  were  peaceful,  but  after 
his  death,  about  1250,  there  were  civil  wars  stimulated  by  the  an- 
tagonism between  Catharan  and  Catholic.  He  was  succeeded  by 
Prijesda,  who  had  remained  Catholic  since  his  conversion  in  1233. 
Under  pretence  of  supporting  Prijesda,  Bela  intervened,  and  by 
1254  he  had  again  reduced  Bosnia  to  subjection,  leading,  doubtless, 
to  active  persecution  of  heresy,  although  the  transfer  of  the  see 
of  Bosnia  to  Kalocsa  was  not  carried  into  effect.* 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Rainerio  Saccone  gives  us  his  com- 
putation of  the  Perfects  in  many  of  the  Catharan  churches.  In 
Constantinople  there  were  two  churches,  a  Latin  and  a  Greek,  the 
former  comprising  fifty  Perfects.  The  latter,  together  with  those 
of  Bulgaria,  Roumania,  Slavonia,  and  Dalmatia,  he  estimates  at 
about  five  hundred.  This  would  indicate  a  very  large  number  of 
beUevers,  and  shows  how  unfruitful  had  been  the  labors  and  the 
wars  which  had  continued  for  more  than  a  generation.  In  fact, 
although  Bela's  long  reign  lasted  until  1270,  he  failed  utterly  in 
his  efforts  to  extirpate  heresy.    On  the  contrary,  the  Cathari  grew 


•  Ripoll  I.  175-6.  — Klaic,  pp.  107-13  —  Kukuljevic,  Jura   Regni   Croatinp, 
Dalmatiee  et  Slavonise,  Zagiabise,  1862,  I.  67. 


298  THE   SLAVIC   CATHARI. 

ever  stronger  and  the  Church  sank  lower  and  lower.  Even  the 
Bosnian  bishops  dared  no  longer  to  remain  in  their  see,  but  re- 
sided in  Djakovar.  So  little  reverence  was  there  felt  in  those  re- 
gions for  the  Holy  See  that  so  near  as  Trieste,  when,  in  1264,  two 
Dominicans  commissioned  to  preach  the  crusade  against  the  Turks 
endeavored  to  perform  their  duty,  the  dean  and  canons  hustled 
them  violently  out  of  the  church,  and  would  not  even  allow  them 
to  address  the  crowd  in  the  public  square,  while  the  archdeacon 
publicly  declared  that  any  one  who  listened  to  them  was  excom- 
municate.* 

Things  grew  worse  with  the  accession,  in  1272,  of  Bela's  grand- 
son, Ladislas  IV.,  known  as  the  Cuman,  from  his  mother  Elizabeth, 
a  member  of  that  pagan  tribe.  Ladislas  lived  with  the  Cumans 
and  shared  their  religion  until  his  contempt  for  the  Holy  See 
manifested  itself  in  the  most  offensive  manner.  The  papal  legate, 
Filippo,  Bishop  of  Fermo,  had  called  a  council  to  meet  at  Buda, 
when  Ladislas  ordered  the  magistrates  of  the  city  not  to  permit 
the  entrance  of  any  prelates,  or  the  supplying  of  any  food  to  the 
legate,  who  was  thus  forced  to  depart  ignominiously.  This  called 
down  upon  him  the  anger  of  Rodolph  of  Hapsburg  and  of  Charles 
of  Anjou,  and  he  was  fain,  in  1280,  to  make  reparation,  not  only  by 
a  humble  apology  and  a  grant  of  one  hundred  marks  per  annum 
for  the  founding  of  a  hospital,  but  by  adopting  and  publishing  as 
the  law  of  the  land  all  the  papal  statutes  against  heresy,  and  swear- 
ing to  enforce  them  vigorously,  while  his  mother  Elizabeth  did 
the  same  as  Duchess  of  Bosnia.  Something  was  gained  by  this, 
and  stm  more,  when,  in  1282,  Ladislas  appointed  as  ruler  of  Bosnia 
his  brother-in-law,  Stephen  Dragutin,  the  exiled  King  of  Servia. 
The  latter,  although  a  Greek,  persecuted  the  Cathari ;  and  when, 
about  1290,  he  was  converted  to  Catholicism,  his  zeal  increased. 
He  sent  to  Rome  Marino,  Bishop  of  Antivari,  to  report  the  pre- 
dominance of  heresy  and  to  ask  for  aid.  Nicholas  IV.  promptly 
responded  by  commissioning  a  legate  to  Andreas  III.,  the  new 
King  of  Hungary,  to  preach  a  crusade,  and  the  Emperor  Rodolph 
was  ordered  to  assist,  but  the  effort  was  bootless.  Equally  vain 
was  his  command  to  the  Franciscan  Minister  of  Slavonia  to  select 


•  Rainerii  Summa  (Martene  Thesaur.V.  1768).— Klaic,p.  153.— Theiner  Monu- 
menta  Slavor.  Meridional.  I.  90. 


INEFFECTIVE    INQUISITION.  299 

two  friiars  acquainted  with  the  language,  and  send  them  to  Bosnia 
to  extirpate  heresy.  The  request  at  the  same  time  made  to  Stephen 
to  support  them  with  the  secular  arm  shows  that  the  missionaries 
were  in  fact  inquisitors.  Unluckily,  Nicholas  in  his  zeal  also  em- 
ployed Dominicans  in  the  business.  Inspired  by  the  traditional 
hatred  between  the  Orders,  the  inquisitors,  or  missionaries,  em- 
ployed all  their  energies  in  quarrelling  with  each  other,  and  be- 
came objects  of  ridicule  instead  of  terror  to  the  heretics.* 

In  1298  Boniface  YIII.  undertook  finally  to  organize  the  In- 
quisition in  the  Franciscan  province  of  Slavonia,  which  comprised 
all  the  territory  south  of  Hungary,  from  the  Danube  to  Macedonia. 
The  provincial  minister  was  ordered  to  appoint  two  friars  as  in- 
quisitors for  this  immense  region,  and  was  intrusted  as  usual  with 
the  power  of  removing  and  replacing  them.  This  slender  organi- 
zation he  endeavored  to  supplement  by  ordering  the  Archbishop 
of  Kalocsa  to  preach  a  crusade,  but  there  was  no  response,  and  the 
proposed  Inquisition  effected  nothing.  When  Stephen  Dragutin 
died,  in  1314,  Bosnia  was  conquered  by  Mladen  Subic,  son  of  the 
Ban  of  Croatia,  under  whom  it  was  virtually  independent  of  Hun- 
gary. Mladen  made  some  show  of  persecuting  heresy — at  least 
when  he  had  a  request  to  make  at  Avignon — but  as  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  his  subjects  were  Cathari,  whose  support  was  absolutely 
necessary  to  him,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  he  made  no  serious  effort. 
In  1319  John  XXII.  describes  the  condition  of  Bosnia  as  deplora- 
ble. There  were  no  Catholic  ecclesiastics,  no  reverence  for  the 
sacraments ;  communion  was  not  administered,  and  in  many  places 
the  rite  of  baptism  was  not  even  known  or  understood.  When 
such  a  pontiff  as  John  felt  obliged  to  appeal  to  Maden  himself  to 
put  an  end  to  this  reproach,  it  shows  that  he  had  no  means  of  ef- 
fective coercion  at  hand.f 

Mladen  was  overthrown  by  Stephen  Kostromanic,  and  when 
he  fled  to  Hungary,  Charles  Robert  cast  him  in  prison,  leaving  un- 
distm'bed  possession  to  Stephen,  who  styled  himself  Ban  by  the 
grace  of  God.  Stephen,  in  1322,  seems  to  have  abandoned  Catholi- 
cism, joining  either  the  Greeks  or  the  Cathari,  but  in  spite  of  this 


•  Rayuald.  ann.  1280,  No.  8,  9;  ann.  1291,  No.  42^4.  — Klaic,  pp.  116-9.— 
Wadding,  ann.  1291,  No.  12. 

t  Wadding,  ann.  1298,  No.  2.— Klaic,  pp.  123-4.— Raynald.  ann.  1319,  No.  24. 


300  THE   SLAVIC   CATHARI. 

affairs  commenced  to  look  more  favorable.  Hungary  began  to 
emerge  from  the  disorders  and  disasters  which  had  so  long  crippled 
it,  and  King  Charles  Robert  was  inclined  to  listen  to  exhortations 
as  to  his  duty  towards  the  Bosnian  heretics.  In  1323,  therefore, 
John  XXII.  made  another  attempt,  sending  Fra  Fabiano  thither 
and  ordering  Charles  Robert  and  Stephen  to  give  him  effective 
support.  The  latter  was  obdurate,  though  the  former  seems  to 
have  manifested  some  zeal,  if  one  may  believe  the  praises  bestowed 
on  him  in  1327  by  John.  Fabiano  was  indefatigable,  but  his  duty 
proved  no  easy  one.  At  the  very  outset  he  met  with  unexpected 
resistance  in  a  city  so  near  at  hand  as  Trieste.  When  he  endeav- 
ored there  to  enforce  the  decrees  against  heresy,  and  to  arouse  the 
people  to  a  sense  of  their  duty,  the  bells  were  rung,  a  mob  was  as- 
sembled, he  was  dragged  from  the  pulpit  and  beaten,  the  leaders 
in  the  disturbance  being  two  canons  of  the  Cathedral,  Michele  da 
Padua,  and  Raimondo  da  Cremona,  who  were  promptly  ordered 
by  the  pope  to  be  prosecuted  as  suspects  of  heresy.  Hardly  had 
he  settled  this  question  when  he  was  involved  in  a  controversy 
with  the  rival  Dominicans,  whom  he  found  to  be  poaching  on  his 
preserves.  A  zealous  Dominican,  Matteo  of  Agram,  by  suppress- 
ing the  fact  that  Slavonia  was  Franciscan  territory,  had  obtained 
from  John  letters  authorizing  the  Dominican  provincial  to  a^jpoint 
inquisitors,  commissioned  to  preach  a  crusade  w^ith  Holy  Land  in- 
dulgences, and  these  inquisitors  had  been  urgently  recommended 
by  the  pope  to  the  King  of  Hungary  and  other  potentates.  It  was 
impossible  that  the  Orders  could  co-operate  in  harmony,  and  Fa- 
biano made  haste  to  represent  to  John  the  trap  into  which  he  had 
been  led.  The  pope  was  now  at  the  height  of  his  controversy 
with  the  greater  part  of  the  Franciscans  over  the  question  of  pov- 
erty, and  it  was  impolitic  to  give  just  grounds  of  complaint  to 
those  who  remained  faithful ;  he  therefore  promptly  recalled  the 
letters  given  to  the  Dominicans,  and  scolded  them  roundly  for  de- 
ceiving him.  Even  yet  it  seemed  impossible  for  Fabiano  to  pene- 
trate beyond  the  borders  of  his  district,  or  to  work  without  im- 
pediment, for  in  1329  he  was  occupied  with  prosecuting  for  heresy 
the  Abbot  of  SS.  Cosmas  and  Damiani  of  Zara  and  one  of  his 
monks,  when  John,  the  Archbishop  of  Zara,  intervened  forcibly 
and  stopped  the  proceedings.  The  difficulties  thrown  in  Fabiano's 
way  must  have  been  great,  for  he  felt  compelled  to  visit  Avignon 


HERESY    IN    DALMATIA.  301 

for  their  removal,  but  his  usual  ill-luck  accompanied  him.  The 
contest  between  the  papacy  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Visconti  and 
Louis  of  Bavaria  on  the  other,  rendered  parts  of  Lombardy  unsafe 
for  papaHsts,  and  a  son  of  Belial  named  Franceschino  da  Pavia  had 
no  scruple  in  laying  hands  on  the  inquisitor  and  despoiling  him  of 
his  horses,  books,  and  papers.  During  all  this  time  the  Inquisition 
must  have  been  at  a  standstill,  but  at  last  Fabiano  overcame  all 
obstacles.  In  1330  he  returned  to  the  scene  of  action ;  Charles 
Robert  and  Stephen  lent  him  their  assistance,  and  the  work  of 
suppressing  the  Cathari  commenced  under  favorable  auspices,  and 
by  the  methods  which  we  have  seen  so  successful  elsewhere.  The 
condition  of  the  Bosnian  Church  may  be  guessed  from  the  fear 
felt  by  John  XXII.  that  the  bishops  would  be  heretics,  leading 
him,  in  1331,  to  reserve  their  appointment  to  the  Holy  See.  Yet 
on  the  death  of  Bishop  Peter,  in  1334,  the  chapter  elected  a  suc- 
cessor, and  Charles  Robert  endeavored  to  force  a  layman  on  the 
Church,  causing  a  disgraceful  quarrel  which  was  not  settled  until 
Benedict  XII.,  in  1336,  pronounced  in  favor  of  the  candidate  of  the 
chapter.* 

The  spiritual  condition  of  the  Slavs  at  this  period  is  indicated 
by  an  occurrence  in  1331  nearer  home.  The  Venetian  inquisitor, 
Fra  Francesco  Chioggia,  in  visiting  his  district,  found  in  the  prov- 
ince of  Aquileia  innumerable  Slavs  who  worshipped  a  tree  and 
fountain.  Apparently  they  were  impervious  to  his  exhortations, 
and  he  had  no  means  at  the  moment  to  enforce  obedience.  He 
was  obhged  to  preach  against  them,  in  Friuli,  a  crusade  with  Holy 
Land  indulgences.  He  thus  raised  an  armed  force  with  which  he 
cut  down  the  tree  and  choked  up  the  fountain  ;  unfortunately,  we 
have  no  record  of  the  fate  of  the  nature-worshippers.f 

Benedict  XII.  was  as  earnest  as  his  predecessor.  Yet  even  Dal- 
matia  was  still  full  of  heresy,  for  in  1335  he  felt  obliged  to  write  to 
the  Archbishop  of  Zara  and  the  Bishops  of  Trau  and  Zegna,  order- 
ing them  to  use  every  means  for  the  extermination  of  heretics,  and 
to  give  efficient  support  to  the  inquisitors.  The  Dalmatian  prelates, 
it  is  true,  prevailed  upon  the  magistrates  of  Spalatro  and  Trau  to 

•  Klaic,  pp.  124-5,  139-40, 154-6.— Theiner  Monunipnt.  Slavor.  Merid.  I.  157, 
234.— Raynakl.  ami.  1325,  No.  28;  ami.  1327,  No.  48.— Wadiiing.  anu.  1325,  No. 
1-4 ;  ann.  1326,  No.  3-7 ;  ann.  1329,  No.  16 ;  ann.  1830,  No.  10. 

t  Archivio  di  Venezia,  Fontanini  MSS.  III.  560. 


502  THE   SLAVIC   CATHARI. 

enact  laws  against  heresy,  but  these  were  not  enforced.  A  century 
had  passed  since  the  Inquisition  was  founded,  and  yet  the  duties  of 
persecution  had  not  even  then  been  learned  on  the  shores  of  the 
Adriatic.  The  work  seemed  further  than  ever  from  accomplish- 
ment. The  Cathari  continued  to  multiply  under  the  avowed  pro- 
tection of  Stephen  and  his  magnates.  A  gleam  of  light  appeared, 
however,  when,  in  1337,  the  Croatian  Count  Nelipic,  a  bitter  enemy 
of  Stephen,  offered  his  services  to  Benedict,  who  joyfully  accepted 
them,  and  summoned  all  the  Croatian  barons  to  range  themselves 
under  his  banner  in  aid  of  the  pious  labors  of  Fabiano  and  his  col- 
leagues. "War  ensued  between  Bosnia  and  Croatia,  of  the  details 
of  which  we  know  httle,  except  that  it  brought  no  advantage  to 
the  faith,  until  it  threatened  to  spread.* 

Stephen's  position,  in  fact,  was  becoming  precarious.  To  the 
east  was  Stephen  Dusan  the  Great,  who  styled  himself  Emperor 
of  Servia,  Greece,  and  Bulgaria,  and  who  had  shown  himself  un- 
friendly since  the  union  of  Herzegovina  with  Bosnia.  To  the  north 
was  Charles  Robert,  who  was  preparing  to  take  part  in  the  war. 
It  is  true  that  the  Venetians,  desirous  to  keep  Hungary  away  from 
their  Adriatic  possessions,  were  ready  to  form  an  alMance  with 
Stephen,  but  the  odds  against  him  were  too  great.  He  probably 
intimated  a  readiness  to  submit,  for  when,  in  1339,  Benedict  sent 
the  Franciscan  General  Gherardo  as  legate  to  Hungary,  Charles 
Robert  convoyed  him  to  the  Bosnian  frontier,  where  Stephen  re- 
ceived him  with  aU  honor,  and  said  that  he  was  not  averse  to  extir- 
pating the  Cathari,  but  feared  that  in  case  of  persecution  they 
would  caU  in  Stephen  Dusan,  If  liberally  supported  by  the  pope 
and  King  of  Hungary  he  would  run  the  risk.  In  1340  Benedict 
promised  him  the  help  of  all  Catholics,  and  he  allowed  himself 
to  be  converted,  an  example  followed  by  many  of  the  magnates. 
It  was  quite  time,  for  Catholicism  had  virtually  disappeared  from 
Bosnia,  where  the  churches  were  mostly  abandoned  and  torn  down. 
Gherardo  hastened  to  follow  up  his  advantage  by  sending  mission- 
aries and  inquisitors  into  Bosnia.  That  there  was  no  place  there, 
however,  for  the  methods  of  the  Inquisition,  and  that  persuasion, 
not  force,  was  required,  is  seen  by  the  legends  which  recount  how 


*  Theiner  Monument.  Slavor.  Merid.  1. 174, 175.— Wadding,  ann.  1331,  No.  4; 
ann.  1337,  No.  1.— Raynald.  ann.  1335,  No.  62.— Klaic,  pp.  157-8. 


LOUIS    OP    HUNGARY.  303 

one  of  these  inquisitors,  Fray  Juan  de  Aragon,  made  numerous 
converts,  after  a  long  and  bitter  disputation  in  an  heretical  assem- 
bly, by  standing  unhurt  on  a  blazing  pjTe ;  and  how  one  of  his 
disciples,  John,  repeated  the  experience,  remaining  in  the  flames 
while  one  might  chant  the  Miserere.  These  miracles,  we  are  told, 
were  very  effective,  and  the  stories  show  that  nothing  else  could 
have  been  so.  Stephen  remained  true  to  his  promises,  and  the 
Catholic  Church  commenced  to  revive.  A  bull  of  Clement  VI.,  in 
1344,  recites  that,  deceived  by  the  falsehoods  of  the  Franciscan 
General  Gherardo,  he  had  ordered  the  Bosnian  tithes  paid  over  to 
the  friars  on  the  pretext  of  rebuilding  the  churches,  but  on  the 
representation  of  Laurence,  Bishop  of  Bosnia,  that  they  belonged 
to  him  and  that  he  had  no  other  source  of  support,  he  is  in  future 
to  receive  them.  At  the  instance  of  Clement,  in  1345,  Stephen 
consented  to  allow  the  return  of  Valentine,  Bishop  of  Makarska, 
who  for  twenty  years  had  been  an  exile  from  his  see,  and  the  next 
year  a  third  bishopric,  that  of  Duvno,  was  erected.  The  Catharan 
magnates  were  restless,  however,  and  when  Dusan  the  Great,  in 
1350,  invaded  Bosnia  many  of  them  joined  him,  but  their  prospects 
became  worse  when  peace  followed  in  1351,  and  when,  in  1353, 
shortly  before  his  death,  Stephen  married  his  only  child  to  Louis 
of  Hungary,  a  zealous  Catholic  who  had  succeeded  his  father, 
Charles  Robert,  in  1342.* 

Stephen  Kostromanic  was  succeeded  by  his  young  nephew, 
Stephen  Tvrtko,  under  the  regency  of  his  mother,  Helena.  Under 
such  circumstances,  dissatisfied  and  insubordinate  Catharan  mag- 
nates had  ample  opportunity  to  produce  confusion.  Of  this  full  ad- 
vantage was  taken  by  Louis  of  Hungary  as  soon  as  the  death  of 
Dusan  the  Great,  in  1355,  reheved  him  from  that  formidable  antag- 
onist. The  Dominicans  hastened,  in  1356,  to  obtain  from  Innocent 
YI.  a  confirmation  of  the  letters  of  John  XXIL,  of  1327,  authoriz- 
ing them  to  preach  a  crusade  against  tlie  heretics  with  Holy  Land 
indulgences.  Louis  seized  Herzegovina  as  a  dower  for  his  wife 
Elisabeth,  reduced  Stephen  Tvrtko  to  the  position  of  a  vassal,  and 
forced  him  to  swear  to  extirpate  the  Cathari.  Not  content  with 
this  he  proceeded  to  stir  up  rebellion  among  the  magnates,  pro- 


•  Klaic,  pp.  159-61, 181-3.— Wadding,  ann.  1340,  No.  6-10.— Theiner,  op.  cit 
211. 


^04  THE    SLAVIC?    C'ATHARI. 

ducing  great  confusion,  during  which  the  Cathari  regained  their 
position.  Then,  in  1360,  Innocent  VI.  conferred  on  Peter,  Bishop 
of  Bosnia,  full  powers  as  papal  inquisitor,  and  also  ordered  a  new 
crusade,  which  served  as  a  pretext  to  Louis  for  a  fresh  invasion. 
Nothing  was  accompUshed  by  this ;  but  in  1365  the  Cathari,  irri- 
tated at  Tvrtko's  efforts  to  suppress  them,  drove  him  and  his 
mother  from  Bosnia.  Louis  furnished  him  with  troops,  and  asked 
Urban  Y.  to  send  two  thousand  Franciscans  to  convert  the  here- 
tics. After  a  desperate  struggle  Tvrtko  regained  the  throne.  His 
brother,  Stephen  Yuk,  who  had  aided  the  rebels,  fled  to  Eagusa 
and  embraced  Catholicism,  after  which,  in  1368,  he  appealed  for 
aid  to  Urban  Y.,  representing  that  his  heretic  brother  had  disin- 
herited him  on  account  of  his  persecuting  heretics.  Urban  accord- 
ingly urged  Louis  to  protect  the  orthodox  Yuk,  and  to  force 
Tvrtko  to  abandon  his  errors,  but  nothing  came  of  it.  Whether 
Tvrtko  was  Catharan  or  Catholic  does  not  clearly  appear.  Prob- 
ably he  was  indifferent  to  all  but  his  personal  interests,  and  was 
ready  to  follow  whatever  policy  promised  to  serve  his  ambition, 
and  his  success  shows  that  he  must  have  had  the  support  of  his 
subjects,  who  were  nearly  aU  Cathari.  Although,  in  1368,  Urban 
Y.  congratulated  Louis  of  Hungary  on  the  success  of  his  arms, 
aided  by  the  friars,  in  bringing  into  the  fold  many  thousand  here- 
tics and  schismatics,  Louis  himself,  in  1372,  reported  that  Chris- 
tianity was  estabhshed  in  but  few  places ;  in  some  the  two  faiths 
were  commingled,  but  for  the  most  part  aU  the  inhabitants  were 
Cathari.  It  was  in  vain  that  Gregory  XL  endeavored  to  found 
Franciscan  houses  as  missionary  centres ;  the  Bosnians  would  not 
be  weaned  from  their  creed.  Had  T\Ttko  followed  a  pohcy  of 
persecution  he  could  not  have  accomphshed  the  conquests  which, 
for  a  brief  period,  shed  lustre  on  the  Bosnian  name.  He  extended 
his  sway  over  a  large  part  of  Servia  and  over  Croatia  and  Dalma- 
tia,  and  when,  in  1376,  he  assumed  the  title  of  king,  there  was  no 
one  to  dispute  it.  After  his  death,  in  1391,  the  magnates  asserted 
virtual  independence  under  a  succession  of  royal  puppets — Stephen 
Dabisa,  his  young  son,  under  the  regency  of  his  widow,  Helena, 
and  then  Stephen  Ostoja.  The  most  powerful  man  in  Bosnia  was 
the  Yojvode  Hrvoje  Yukcic,  who  ruled  the  north,  and  next  to 
him  was  his  kinsman  Sandal j  Hranic  who  dominated  the  south. 
Both  of  theee  men  were  Cathari,  and  so  was  the  king,  Stephen 


CATHARI8M    TRIUMPHANT.  305 

Ostoja,  and  all  his  family.  Catholicism  almost  disappeared,  and 
Catharism  was  the  religion  of  the  State.  It  was  organized  under 
a  Djed  (grandfather),  or  chief,  with  twelve  Ucitelji,  or  teachers,  of 
whom  the  first  was  the  Gost,  or  visitor,  the  deputy  and  successor 
of  the  Djed,  and  the  second  was  known  as  the  Starac,  or  elder.* 

These  were  state  officials,  and  we  see  them  occasionally  acting 
in  an  official  capacity.  Thus,  when,  in  1404,  the  Yojvode  Paul 
Klesic,  who  had  been  exiled,  was  recalled,  it  was  the  Djed  Ka- 
domjer  who  sent  Catharan  envoys  to  Kagusa  to  bring  him  home, 
and  who  wrote  to  the  Doge  of  Ragusa  on  the  subject.  Klesic  was 
a  Catharan,  and  his  residence  in  Ragusa,  as  well  as  that  of  many 
similar  Catharan  exiles,  shows  that  persecution  had  grown  obso- 
lete even  on  the  coast  of  the  Adriatic.  In  spite  of  his  Catharism, 
Hrvoje  Yukcic  was  made  by  Ladislas  of  Naples,  Duke  of  Spalatro 
and  lord  of  some  of  the  Dalmatian  islands,  thus  making  Catharism 
dominant  along  the  shore.  In  the  troubles  which  ended  in  the 
deposition  of  Stephen  Ostoja  and  the  election  of  Stephen  Tvrtko 
II.  a  "  Congregation  of  the  Bosnian  Lords  "  was  held  in  1404,  in 
which,  among  those  present,  are  enumerated  the  Djed  and  several 
of  his  Ucitelji,  but  no  mention  is  made  of  any  Cathofic  bishop. 
Toleration  seemed  to  have  established  itself.  The  Great  Schism 
gave  the  Holy  See  abundant  preoccupation,  and  missionary  efforts 
are  no  longer  heard  of,  until  the  Emperor  Sigismund,  as  King  of 
Hungary,  bethought  himself  of  re-establishing  his  claim  over  Bos- 
nia. Two  armies  sent  in  1405  were  unsuccessful,  but  in  1407  Greg- 
ory XII.  aided  him  with  a  buU  summoning  Christendom  to  a 


*  Klaic,  pp.  184-5, 187-8, 190-5,  200-1,  223,  262,  268-77,  287,  369.— Theiner 
Monument.  Slavor.  Merid.  I.  233,  240.— Wadding,  ann.  1356,  No.  7;  ann.  1368, 
No.  1-3;  ann.  1369,  No.  11;  ann.  1372,  No.  31-33;  ann.  1373,  No.  17;  ann.  1382, 
No.  2.— Raynald.  ann.  1368,  No.  18;  ann.  1372,  No.  32.— Pet.  Ranzani  Epit.  Rer. 
Hung.  XIX.  (Schwandtner  Rer.  Hung.  Scriptt.  p.  377). 

In  1367  we  find  the  people  of  Cattaro  appealing  to  Urban  V.  for  aid  against 
the  schismatics  of  Albania,  and  the  heretics  of  Bosnia  who  were  endeavoring  to 
convert  them  by  force  (Theiner,  op.  cit.  I.  259),  which  probably  refers  to  some 
enterprise  of  the  restless  Sandalj  Hranic.  Yet  when,  in  1383,  we  hear  of  a  Bishop 
of  Bosnia,  recently  dead,  who  had  lent  12,000  florins  to  Louis  of  Hungary,  and 
had  then  bequeathed  the  debt  to  the  Holy  See  (lb.  p.  337),  we  can  only  conclude 
that  the  orthodox  Bosnian  Church  continued  to  exist  and  was  not  wholly  pen- 
niless. 

II.— 20 


306  THE    SLAVIC    CATHARI. 

crusade  against  the  Turks,  the  apostate  Arians,  and  the  Manichae- 
ans.  Under  these  auspices,  in  1408,  he  led  a  force  of  sixty  thou- 
sand Hungarians  and  Poles  into  Bosnia,  defeated  and  captured 
Tvrtko  II.,  and  recovered  Croatia  and  Dalmatia,  but  the  Bosni- 
ans were  obstinate,  and  replaced  Ostoja  on  the  throne.  Another 
expedition,  in  1410-1411,  drove  Ostoja  to  the  south,  and  Sigismund, 
for  a  while,  retained  possession  of  Bosnia,  but  when,  in  1415,  he 
released  Tvrtko  II.  and  sent  him  to  Bosnia  as  king,  a  civil  war 
immediately  ensued.  Tvrtko  at  first  was  successful,  supported 
with  a  large  Hungarian  army,  but  Ostoja  called  the  Turks  to  his 
assistance,  and  in  a  decisive  battle  the  Hungarians  were  defeated. 
The  Turks  penetrated  to  Cillei  in  the  Steyermark,  devastating  and 
plundering  everywhere,  and  on  their  return  carried  with  them 
thousands  of  Christian  captives.* 

This  shows  the  new  factor  which  had  injected  itself  into  the 
already  tangled  problem.  In  1389  the  fatal  day  of  the  Amselfeld 
had  thrown  open  the  Avhole  Balkan  peninsula  to  the  Turks,  who 
since  then  had  been  steadily  winning  their  way.  In  1392  we  hear 
of  their  first  incursion  in  southern  Bosnia,  after  which  they  had 
constantly  taken  a  greater  part  in  the  affairs  of  the  Banate.  The 
condition  of  the  country  was  that  of  savage  and  perpetual  civil 
war.  There  was  no  royal  power  capable  of  enforcing  order,  and 
the  magnates  were  engaged  in  tearing  each  other  to  pieces.  De- 
void of  aU  sentiment  of  nationaUty,  no  one  had  any  scruple  in 
calling  in  the  aid  of  the  infidel,  in  paying  allegiance  to  him,  or  in 
subsidizing  him  to  prevent  his  joining  the  opposite  party.  It  was 
the  same  with  Catholic,  Catharan,  and  Greek,  No  sense  of  the 
ever-approaching  danger  served  to  make  them  abandon  their  inter- 
necine quarrels,  and  if  a  temporary  petty  advantage  was  to  be 
gained  there  was  no  hesitation  in  aiding  the  Turk  to  a  farther  ad- 
vance. The  only  wonder  is  that  the  progress  of  the  Moslem  con- 
quest was  so  slow ;  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  could  have 
been  arrested  by  united  effort,  and  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
the  rule  of  Islam  was  not,  after  all,  an  improvement  on  the  state 
of  virtual  anarchy  which  it  replaced.  To  the  peasantry  it  offered 
itself  rather  as  a  deliverance.  When,  in  1461,  Stephen  Tomasevic 
ascended  the  throne,  in  his  appeal  for  aid  to  Pius  II.  he  describes 


*  Klaic,  pp.  275,  287-8,  291,  397-8,  304-5,  312-13,  324. 


THE    TURKISH    ADVANCE.  307 

the  Turks  as  treating  the  peasants  kindly,  promising  them  free- 
dom, and  thus  winning  them  over,  and  he  adds  that  the  mag- 
nates cannot  defend  their  castles  when  thus  abandoned  by  the 
peasants.* 

As  regards  the  Cathari,  the  Turkish  advance  produced  two 
contrary  effects.  On  the  one  hand  there  was  the  danger  that  per- 
secution would  drive  them  to  seek  protection  from  the  enemy. 
On  the  other  hand  there  was  absolute  need  of  assistance  from 
Christendom,  which  could  only  be  obtained  by  submission  to  Rome, 
and  obedience  to  her  demands  for  their  extermination.  Both  of 
these  influences  worked  to  the  destruction  of  Bosnia,  for  when 
toleration  was  practised  aid  was  withheld,  and  when  at  last  perse- 
secution  was  established  as  a  policy  the  Cathari  welcomed  the 
invader,  and  contributed  to  the  subjugation  of  the  kingdom. 

In  1420  Stephen  Tvrtko  II.  reappeared  upon  the  scene,  and 
the  next  year  he  was  acknowledged.  There  followed  a  breathing- 
space,  for  the  Turkish  general  Isaac  was  defeated  and  killed  dur- 
ing an  incursion  into  Hungary,  and  Mahomet  I.,  involved  in  strife 
with  Mustapha,  had  no  leisure  to  repair  the  disaster.  This  did 
not  last  long,  however,  for  in  1424  the  sons  of  Ostoja  endeavored, 
with  Turkish  help,  to  win  back  their  father's  throne,  the  onh''  re- 
sult of  which  was  a  war  ending  with  the  surrender  of  a  portion  of 
Bosnian  territory  to  Murad  II.  Again,  in  1433,  when  Tvrtko  was 
fighting  with  the  Servian  despot,  George  Brankovic,  he  was  sud- 
denly caUed  to  the  south  to  withstand  a  Turkish  inroad  invited 
by  Radivoj,  one  of  the  sons  of  Ostoja,  and  this  was  immediately 
followed  by  the  rising  of  Sandalj  Hranic,  the  powerful  magnate 
of  Herzegovina,  who  drove  Tvrtko  to  seek  refuge  with  Sigismund. 
His  absence  lasted  three  years,  during  which  the  wildest  confusion 
reigned  in  Bosnia,  the  Turks  being  constantly  caUed  in  to  partici- 
pate with  one  side  or  the  other.f 

Meanwhile  the  rise  of  the  Observantine  Franciscans  was  re- 
storing to  the  Church  some  of  its  old  missionary  fervor,  and  fur- 
nishing it  with  the  necessary  self -devoted  agents.  In  spite  of  the 
preoccupations  arising  from  the  contest  between  Eugenius  lY. 
and  the  Council  of  Basle,  an  effort  was  made  to  win  back  Bosnia 
to  the  faith.     If  anything  could  accompUsh  this  there  might  be 


•  Klavc,  p.  416.  t  Ibid.  pp.  335-8,  344-6,  351-3. 


308  THE    SLAVIC    CATHARl. 

hope  from  the  fierce  and  inexhaustible  enthusiasm  of  the  Obser- 
vantine  Friar,  the  Blessed  Giacomo  della  Marca,  who  had  ah-eady 
given  evidence  of  ruthless  efficiency  as  inquisitor  of  the  Italian 
Fraticelli.  In  1432  he  was  accordingly  sent  with  full  powers  to 
reform  the  Franciscan  Order  in  Slavonia,  and  to  turn  its  whole 
energies  to  missionary  work.  Under  this  impulsion  we  are  told 
that  conversions  were  numerous  from  Bosnia  to  WaUachia,  and 
Eugenius  lY.  stimulated  rivalry  by  also  setting  the  Dominicans 
at  work.  In  1434  Giacomo  was  driven  out,  but  was  sent  back  the 
next  year,  and  distinguished  himself  by  redoubled  ardor  and  suc- 
cess, attributed,  according  to  his  biographers,  partly  to  his  miracu- 
lous powers.  Alarmed  at  his  progress,  the  wicked  queen  sent  four 
assassins  to  despatch  him,  when  he  extended  his  arms  and  bade 
them  do  whatever  God  would  permit,  whereupon  they  became 
rigid  and  suffered  agonies  until  he  prayed  for  their  release.  In- 
dignant at  this  attempt,  he  bearded  the  king  and  queen  in  full 
court,  and  his  boldness  gained  him  so  many  converts  that  the  king 
became  alarmed  for  his  throne.  A  sorcerer  was  accordingly  em- 
ployed to  slay  the  intrepid  inquisitor,  but  Giacomo  promptly  ren- 
dered the  man  speechless  for  life.  Some  heretics  then  sawed 
through  the  supports  of  a  platform  where  he  was  preaching.  It 
fell,  but  he  escaped,  and  to  this  day,  says  the  legend,  the  poster- 
ity of  the  perpetrators  have  all  been  born  halt  and  lame.  These 
proofs  of  divine  favor  led  to  numerous  conversions,  but  he  became 
involved  in  quarrels  with  the  Catholic  clergy,  caused,  we  are  told, 
by  envy,  and  they  excommunicated  him,  so  that  he  was  obliged 
to  seek  absolution  from  the  pope.  His  triumphant  career  was  cut 
short  by  a  summons  from  the  Emperor  Sigismund  to  assist  in  the 
pacification  of  the  Hussite  troubles,  and  his  field  of  action  was 
transferred  to  regions  farther  north,  where  we  shall  meet  him 
hereafter.  Even  there,  however,  he  did  not  forget  his  Bosnian 
enemies,  for  at  Stuhlweissenburg,  on  meeting  the  legates  of  the 
Council  of  Basle,  he  at  once  asked  them  to  exert  their  influence  on 
Sigismund.  Though  King  Stephen,  he  said,  was  an  unbaptized 
heretic  who  would  not  allow  his  subjects  to  be  baptized,  a  com- 
mand from  the  emperor  would  be  sufficient  to  compel  him  to 
yield.  Giacomo,  moreover,  had  left  behind  him  worthy  disciples 
from  among  the  natives.  One  of  these,  the  Blessed  Angelo  of 
Verbosa,  shone  also  by  miraculous  gifts.     On  one  occasion  the 


HOPELESS    DISSENSIONS.  309 

heretics  gave  him  poison  to  drink,  but  on  making  the  sign  of  the 
cross  above  the  cup  it  became  innocuous,  which  brought  him  many 
converts.* 

This  legendary  extravagance  has  some  foundation  in  fact.  A 
bull  of  Eugenius  IV.,  in  1437,  speaks  of  sixteen  Franciscan 
churches  and  monasteries  destroyed  by  the  Turks  within  two 
years,  and  another  grants  to  the  friars  who  remained  certain  priv- 
ileges in  hearing  confessions,  which  show  that  they  had  been 
active,  and  had  been  winning  their  way.  Giacomo's  influence  at 
Stuhlweissenburg  is,  moreover,  indicated  by  his  inducing  Sigis- 
mund  to  compel  Stephen  Tvrtko  to  undergo  baptism,  and  to  issue 
from  that  place,  in  January,  1436,  an  edict  taking  the  Franciscans 
under  his  protection,  and  permitting  them  to  spread  Catholicism 
throughout  Bosnia.  In  reward  for  this  Sigismund  aided  his  re- 
turn to  his  kingdom,  which  he  found  possessed  partly  by  Servia, 
partly  by  the  Turks,  and  wholly  devastated.  For  what  he  could 
obtain  of  this  ruined  land  he  had  to  render  allegiance  to  Murad 
II.,  and  to  pay  him  a  yearly  tribute  of  twenty-five  thousand  duc- 
ats. Wretched  as  was  this  simulacrum  of  royalty,  it  was  incom- 
patible with  the  favor  which  he  had  been  compelled  to  show  to 
Catholicism.  Southern  Bosnia  by  this  time  was  independent  un- 
der Stephen  Vukcic,  nephew  and  successor  of  Sandalj ;  as  a  Cath- 
aran,  he  was  regarded  throughout  Bosnia  as  the  defender  of  the 
national  faith,  and,  in  alUance  with  Murad  II.,  he  overthrew 
Stephen  Tvrtko  Il.f 

In  1444  another  king  was  elected  in  the  person  of  Stephen 
Thomas  Ostojic,  a  younger  natural  son  of  Ostoja,  who  had  caref  uUy 
kept  himself  in  obscurity  with  a  low-born  Catharan  wife,  to  whom 
he  had  been  married  with  the  Catharan  ceremony  —  a  fact  which 
subsequently  served  as  an  excuse  for  a  divorce.  Almost  the  first 
question  which  the  new  king  had  to  decide  was  whether  he  would 
adhere  to  his  religion  or  cast  his  fortunes  with  CathoUcism.  The 
Church  had  not  relaxed  its  efforts  to  win  over  the  fragments  re- 


*  Wadding,  ann.  1433,  No.  12-13;  ann.  1435,  No.  1-7,  9;  ann.  1476,  No.  39- 
40;  aim.  1498,  No.  2.— .Egid.  Carlerii  Lib.  de  Legationibus  (:\ronumeut.  Conci\. 
General.  Saec.  XV.  T.  I.  p.  676). 

t  Theiner  Monument.  Slavor.  Merid.  I.  375,  376.  —  Klaic,  pp.  354-6,  364-6, 
369. 


310  THE    SLAVIC    CATHARI. 

maining  of  P)Osnia,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  was  only  aiding  the 
designs  of  the  Turks  by  adding  to  confusion  and  discord.  In  1437 
the  vacancy  left  by  Giacomo  della  Marca  had  been  filled  by  the 
appointment  of  Fra  Niccolo  of  Trau,  and  since  1439  Tommaso, 
Bishop  of  Lesina,  had  been  in  Bosnia  as  papal  legate,  busily  en- 
gaged in  furthering  the  interests  of  Catholicism.  He  had  failed 
in  an  effort  to  convert  Stephen  Yukcic,  but  the  advent  of  a  new 
king  was  an  incentive  to  further  exertions.  Eugenius  promptly 
appointed  the  Observantine  Vicar  of  Bosnia,  Fabiano  of  Bacs, 
and  his  successors  perpetual  inquisitors  over  the  Slavonic  lands, 
and  instructed  the  Bishop  of  Lesina  to  promise  Stephen  Thomas 
the  recognition  of  his  election  if  he  would  embrace  the  true  faith. 
The  position  was  a  difficult  one.  All  his  magnates,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Peter  Vojsalic,  were  Catharans,  and  to  offend  them 
would  be  to  invite  Turkish  intervention,  while,  so  long  as  he  held 
aloof  from  Christendom,  he  could  expect  no  aid  from  the  West. 
Doubtless  promises  that  could  not  be  fulfilled  were  made  to  him 
in  plenty,  for  he  concluded  to  cast  his  fortunes  with  Catholicism, 
but  he  abstained  from  receiving  the  crown  offered  to  him  by  Eu- 
genius for  fear  of  offending  his  Catharan  subjects.  He  permitted 
the  erection  of  two  new  bishoprics,  he  was  duly  baptized,  and  he 
labored  long  and  earnestly  to  induce  his  subjects  to  follow  his  ex- 
ample. Nearly  all  his  magnates  did  so,  but  Stephen  Vukcic  was 
a  conspicuous  exception,  and  the  common  people  were  not  so  easi- 
ly moved.  Even  the  king  himself  did  not  dare  to  omit  the  cus- 
tomary "  adoration  "  of  the  Perfects,  for  which  he  was  duly  ex- 
communicated by  the  inquisitor,  but  the  pope  recognized  the 
difficulty  of  his  position,  and  wisely  gave  him  a  dispensation  for 
associating  with  heretics.* 

Although  many  Catholic  churches  were  built,  the  legate  re- 
ported, on  a  visit  to  Rome,  that  the  land  was  too  full  of  heresy 
for  other  cure  than  the  sword.  The  king's  position  was  too  inse- 
cure for  him  to  venture  on  persecution,  which  would  infalhbly 
have  led  to  a  revolt.  In  a  grant,  in  1446,  of  certain  towns  to 
Count  Paul  Dragisic  and  his  brothers,  '^t^ho  were  zealous  Cathari, 


*  Klaic,  pp.  366-7,  369-70,  372-3.— Wadding,  ann.  1437,  No.  2-3 ;  ann.  1444, 
No.  42-3.— Ripoll  III.  91.— Raynald.  ann.  1444,  No.  2;  ann.  1445,  No.  23;  ann. 
1447,  No.  21.— Theiner,  op.  cit.  I.  388,  389,  395. 


PERSECUTION    ESTABLISHED.  311 

it  is  provided  that,  in  case  of  their  committing  treason,  the  gift  is 
not  to  be  resumed  without  a  previous  investigation  "  by  the  Lord 
Djed  and  the  Bosnian  Church  and  good  Bosnians."  The  Francis- 
cans complained  of  his  lukewarmness  to  Nicholas  Y.,  when  he 
justified  himself  on  the  plea  of  necessity;  he  longed,  he  said,  for 
the  time  when  he  could  offer  to  his  subjects  the  alternative  of 
death  or  conversion,  but  as  yet  the  heretics  were  too  numerous 
and  powerful  and  his  position  too  precarious.  Nicholas  calmed 
the  Franciscans,  and  they  eagerly  awaited,  the  good  time  to 
come.* 

The  defeat,  in  1448,  of  John  Hunyady,  in  a  three  days'  battle 
on  the  historic  Amselfeld,  led,  in  1449,  to  a  seven  years'  peace  be- 
tween him  and  Murad  II.,  in  which  Bosnia  was  included.  Peace 
with  Servia  followed,  and,  thus  relieved  from  the  fear  of  foreign 
aggression,  Stephen  Thomas  was  summoned  to  perform  his  prom- 
ises. Before  the  papal  representatives  he  was  obliged  to  give  a 
solemn  pledge  to  John  Hunyady  that  he  would  strike  heresy  with 
a  crushing  blow.  Nicholas  V.,  who  had  sent  the  Bishop  of  Lesina 
back  as  legate,  ordered  him  to  preach  a  crusade  with  Holy  Land 
indulgences,  and  active  efforts  were  made  in  the  good  work. 
Early  in  1451  the  Bishop  of  Lesina  sent  most  encouraging  reports 
of  the  result.  Many  of  the  nobles  had  sought  conversion ;  the 
king  in  every  way  helped  the  Franciscans,  and  had  founded  sev- 
eral houses  for  them ;  wherever  these  houses  existed  the  heretics 
melted  away  like  wax  before  the  fire,  and  if  a  sufficient  supply  of 
friars  could  be  had  heresy  would  be  extirpated.  Not  quite  so 
rose-colored  was  the  statement  of  a  Dominican,  Fra  Giovanni  of 
Ragusa,  that  in  Bosnia  and  Servia  there  were  very  few  monks 
and  priests,  so  that  the  people  were  wholly  untrained  in  the  faith. 
Unmindful  of  the  danger  of  conjoining  the  two  Orders,  Nicholas 
sent  him  thither  with  some  of  his  brethren  on  missionary  work, 
and  at  the  same  time  despatched  the  Franciscan  Eugenio  Somma 
to  Albania,  Bulgaria,  and  Servia  in  the  double  capacity  of  nuncio 
and  inquisitor,  t 

The  good  Bishop  of  Lesina  had  been  over-sanguine.     In  the 


»  Klaic,  pp.  373-4.— Raynald.  ann.  1449,  No.  9. 

t  Klaic,  pp.  376-77,  379.— Raynald.  ann.  1449,  No.  9;  ann.  1450,  No.  13;  ann. 
1461,  No.  136.— Wadding,  ann.  1451,  No.  47,  52-3.— RipoU  III.  286. 


312  THE    SLAVIC    CATHARI. 

first  pressure  of  persecution  forty  heads  of  the  Catharari  Church, 
with  great  numbers  of  the  laity,  sought  refuge  with  Stephen  Yuk- 
cic,  who  proceeded  to  attack  the  Catholics  of  Eagusa,  while  many 
others  fled  to  Servia  and  to  the  Turks,  and  appealed  to  them  for 
help.  Those  who  remained  prepared  for  resistance,  and  a  bloody 
religious  war  broke  out,  of  which  George  Brankovic  of  Servia 
took  advantage  to  renew  the  war  suspended  in  1449.  This  was 
more  than  Stephen  Thomas  could  endure ;  he  was  forced  to  aban- 
don persecution  and  to  call  for  help.  John  Hunyady  was  enraged 
at  his  weakness,  and  ordered  him  to  make  peace  with  Servia.  He 
appealed  to  Nicholas  V.,  who  remonstrated  with  Hunyady,  when 
the  latter  retorted  that  Stephen  Thomas  was  false  to  his  promises, 
and,  in  place  of  exterminating  the  heretics,  was  protecting  them, 
to  the  scandal  of  all  Christendom.* 

On  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  in  May,  1453,  Stephen  Thomas 
promptly  sent  envoys  to  Mahomet  II.  to  tender  his  allegiance. 
In  the  ever  -  deepening  menace  of  the  Turks  persecution  could 
hardly  be  resumed  with  activity,  but  the  popes  occasionally  gave 
him  a  portion  of  the  moneys  raised  for  the  crusade,  and  the  Cath- 
ari  were  humiliated  and  proscribed  as  far  as  could  be  ventured 
upon,  and  constituted  a  discontented  and  dangerous  element  of 
the  population.  In  1459  we  find  the  king  protesting  to  Pius  II. 
that  he  persecuted  the  Cathari  roundly,  and  asking  for  more  bish- 
ops ;  and  one  of  his  latest  acts  was  to  send  the  Bishop  of  Nona  to 
the  pope  with  three  Catharan  magnates — George  Kucinic,  Stojsav 
Tvrtkovic,  and  Radovan  Yiencinic — that  they  might  be  converted. 
It  seems  incredible  that  any  one  should  covet  a  throne  so  precari- 
ous, and  yet,  in  1461,  while  Stephen  Thomas  was  battling  with  the 
Croatian  magnates,  he  was  murdered  by  his  son,  Stephen  Thomas- 
evic,  and  his  brother  Radivoj.  The  crown  which  Stephen  Tho- 
masevic  thus  won  by  a  parricide  was  a  crown  of  thorns.  To  the 
north  Matthias  Corvinus  of  Hungary  was  estranged  and  unforgiv- 
ing ;  to  the  west  was  Croatia,  with  which  he  was  at  war ;  in  the 
south  Stephen  Yukcic  was  his  enemy ;  while  on  the  east  lay  Ser- 
via, now  a  Turkish  pashalic,  from  which  Mahomet  II.  only 
awaited  the  fitting  moment  to  reduce  Bosnia  to  a  like  condition. 
Thus  surrounded  by  foes,  the  internal  condition  of  the  land  was 


Theiner,  op.  cit.  I.  408.— Klaic.  pp.  380-3. 


THE    END    APPROACHING.  313 

not  reassuring,  for  it  was  full  of  secret  or  open  Cathari,  who  longed 
for  help  or  revenge,  no  matter  whence  it  might  come.* 

The  new  king  recognized  that  his  only  hope  lay  in  obtaining 
aid  from  Christendom,  to  earn  which  he  labored  energetically  to 
strengthen  the  Catholic  Church  in  his  dominions,  but,  in  the  fatal 
perverseness  of  the  time,  this  only  precipitated  his  downfall. 
From  Pius  II.  he  obtained  only  barren  instructions  to  the  legate, 
Lorenzo,  Abbot  of  Spalatro,  to  collect  money  and  crusaders.  From 
Matthias  Corvinus  he  purchased  an  alliance  by  a  heavy  payment, 
by  surrendering  some  castles,  and  by  breaking  off  relations  with 
the  Turks  and  ceasing  to  pay  them  tribute.  In  all  this  he  es- 
tranged still  further  his  heretic  subjects  and  drew  upon  his  head 
the  vengeance  of  Mahomet  II.  Many  Cathari,  driven  from  Bos- 
nia, had  found  refuge  in  Moslem  territory ;  others,  especially  no- 
bles, forced  to  pretend  conversion,  maintained  constant  relations 
with  the  Turks,  kept  them  advised  of  all  that  occurred,  and  were 
eager  to  aid  them,  in  hopes  of  revenge.  The  news  of  the  treaty 
with  Matthias  Corvinus  was  speedily  conveyed  to  Mahomet,  who, 
to  test  its  truth,  sent  an  envoy  to  demand  the  tribute.  King  Ste- 
phen took  him  to  the  treasury,  showed  him  the  money,  and  re- 
fused to  deUver  it,  saying  that  he  needed  it  for  self-defence,  or 
that  it  would  support  him  in  exile  if  driven  from  the  kingdom, 
and  he  paid  no  heed  to  the  envoy's  warning  that  treasure  with- 
held in  defiance  of  pledges  would  bring  him  no  luck.f 

Defiance  such  as  this  left  nothing  to  hope  for  from  the  Turk, 
but  preoccupations  in  "Wallachia  kept  Mahomet  busy  during  1462, 
and  he  postponed  his  revenge  till  the  following  year.  It  shows 
the  blindness  of  Rome  to  the  situation  and  the  unflagging  persist- 
ency of  the  determination  to  secure  uniformity  of  faith,  tliat  dur- 
ing this  respite  Pius  II.  sent  learned  friars  to  Bosnia  with  instruc- 
tions that  the  best  mode  of  overcoming  heresy  was  to  promote 
study.  The  instructions  were  excellent,  but  sadly  misplaced. 
Through  the  winter  and  spring  of  1463  Mahomet  was  preparing 
the  final  blow  by  massing  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men  at 
Adrianople.  To  throw  Stephen  Thomasevic  off  of  his  guard,  his 
request  for  a  fifteen  years'  truce  was  granted,  and  his  envoys,  re- 


*  Klaic,  pp.  398,  408-9,  412,  414-15.— Tlieinor,  I.  432. 
t  Klai-,  pp.  424-6. 


314  THE    SLAVIC    CATIIAIII. 

turning  with  this  welcome  news,  were  followed,  after  an  interval 
of  four  days,  by  the  Turkish  host.  The  land  was  found  defence- 
less, and  no  resistance  was  offered  till  the  invaders  reached  the 
royal  castle  of  Bobovac,  a  stronghold  capable  of  prolonged  de- 
fence. Its  commandant,  however,  was  Count  Eadak,  a  Catharan 
who  had  been  forced  to  conversion,  and  on  the  third  day  he  sur- 
rendered on  a  promise  of  reward.  "When  he  claimed  this,  Ma- 
homet, reproaching  him  with  his  treason,  had  him  promptly  be- 
headed, and  tradition  still  points  out  on  the  road  to  Sutiska  the 
rock  Kadakovica,  where  the  traitor  met  his  end.  The  capitulation 
of  Bobovac  cast  terror  throughout  the  land.  Resistance  was  no 
longer  thought  of,  and  the  only  alternatives  were  flight  or  submis- 
sion. The  king  hurried  towards  the  Croatian  frontier,  with  Ma- 
homet Pasha  at  his  heels,  and  was  compelled  at  Kljuc  to  surrender 
on  promise  of  Ufe  and  freedom,  but,  in  spite  of  this,  he  was  put  to 
death,  after  being  utilized  to  order  all  commandants  of  cities  and 
castles  to  surrender  them.  Within  eight  days  more  than  seventy 
towns  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Turks,  and  by  the  middle  of  June 
all  Bosnia  was  in  their  possession.  Then  Mahomet  turned  south- 
ward to  overrun  the  territories  of  Stephen  Vukcic,  but  the  moun- 
tains of  Herzegovina  were  bravely  defended  by  the  Cathari,  and 
by  the  end  of  June  the  Turkish  host  took  its  way  homeward,  car- 
rying with  it  one  hundred  thousand  prisoners  and  thirty  thousand 
youths  to  be  converted  into  Janissaries.* 

Thus  abandoned  by  Christendom,  except  to  hasten  the  end 
through  perpetually  inflaming  reUgious  strife,  Bosnia  was  con- 
quered without  a  struggle,  while  Herzegovina  held  out  for  twenty 
years  longer.  How  easily  the  catastrophe  might  have  been  averted 
is  seen  in  the  fact  that  before  the  year  1463  was  out  Matthias 
Corvinus  had  reconquered  a  large  portion  of  the  territory  so  easi- 
ly won,  which  was  held  until  the  Hungarian  power  was  broken 
on  the  disastrous  field  of  Mohacs  in  1526.  In  the  Turkish  lands 
the  Cathari  for  the  most  part  embraced  Mahometanism,  and  the 
sect  which  had  so  stubbornly  endured  the  vicissitudes  of  more 
than  a  thousand  years  disappeared  in  obscurity.  The  Christians 
had  the  resource  of  flight,  which  they  embraced,  commencing  an 
emigration  which  continued  until  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 


•  Klaic,  pp.  427-8, 432-6.— Wadding,  ann.  1462,  No.  82. 


THE    TURKISH   CONQUEST.  315 

century.  This  was  rather  to  escape  oppression  than  persecution, 
for  the  Turks  permitted  them  the  exercise  of  their  religion.  When 
the  blessed  Angelo  of  Yerbosa,  the  disciple  of  Giacomo  della 
Marca,  persuaded  his  fellow  -  believers  to  leave  the  country,  Ma- 
homet sent  for  him  and  menacingly  asked  him  his  reasons.  "  To 
worship  God  elsewhere,"  he  boldly  replied,  and  so  eloquently 
pleaded  his  cause  that  the  Turk  ordered  the  Christians  to  be  un- 
molested, and  gave  Angelo  permission  to  preach.  Thenceforth  the 
Franciscans  were  the  refuge  and  support  of  the  Christians  up  to 
modern  times,  though  they  had  many  cruelties  to  endure  at  the 
hands  of  the  barbarous  conquerors.* 


*  Klaic,  pp.  437-9, 443.— Wadding,  ann.  1478,  No.  67 ;  ann.  1498,  No.  2-3 ;  ann. 
1500,  No.  44. 

There  was  at  least  one  humorous  incident  connected  with  the  conquest  of 
Bosnia.  On  the  occupation  by  the  Turks  of  the  capital,  Jaicza,  the  Franciscans 
fled  to  Venice,  carrying  with  them  the  body  of  St.  Luke,  which  had  been  trans- 
lated thither  from  Constantinople.  The  possession  of  so  important  a  relic  brought 
them  great  consideration,  but  involved  them  in  a  troublesome  contest.  For 
three  hundred  years  the  Benedictine  house  of  St.  Justina  at  Padua  had  rejoiced 
in  owning  the  body  of  St.  Luke,  which  was  the  source  of  much  profit.  The 
Benedictines  objected  to  the  intrusion  of  the  doppelganger ;  and  as  no  trust- 
worthy tradition  assigned  two  bodies  to  the  saint,  there  was  no  chance  of  com- 
promise. They  appealed  to  Pius  IL,  who  referred  the  case  with  full  powers  of 
decision  to  his  legate  at  Venice,  Cardinal  Bessarion.  A  trial  in  all  legal  form 
was  held,  lasting  for  three  months  and  resulting  in  the  victory  of  the  Francis- 
cans. The  Paduan  Luke,  as  an  impostor,  was  forbidden  to  enjoy  in  future  the 
devotion  of  the  faithful,  but  no  provision  was  made  to  compensate  those  who  for 
three  centuries  had  wasted  on  him  their  prayers  and  offerings,  in  the  belief 
that  they  were  securing  the  suffrages  of  the  genuine  Evangelist.  The  Paduans 
for  years  vainly  endeavored  to  get  Bessarion's  decision  set  aside,  and  they  were 
finally  obliged  to  submit.  Their  strongest  argument  was  that,  about  the  year  580, 
the  Emperor  Tiberius  H.  had  given  to  St.  Gregory,  then  apocrisarius  of  Pelagius 
IL  in  Constantinople,  the  head  of  St.  Luke,  which  was  still  exhibited  and  venerat- 
ed in  the  Basilica  of  the  Vatican.  Now  the  Benedictine  St.  Luke  was  a  headless 
trunk,  while  the  Franciscan  one  was  perfect,  and  they  argued  with  reason  that  it 
was  highly  improbable  that  St.  Luke  had  possessed  two  liends.  This  logic  was 
more  cogent  than  successful,  though  the  Vatican  clergy  did  not  feel  called  upon 
to  discredit  their  own  valuable  relic,  which  they  continued  to  exhibit  as  genuine. 
The  question  was  still  further  complicated  by  a  superfluous  arm  of  the  Evangelist 
which  was  preserved  in  the  Basilica  of  S.  Maria  ad  Praesepe  (Wadding,  ann.  1468, 
No.  13-23). 


CHAPTEK  VI. 

GERMANY. 

In  1209  Henry  of  Yeringen,  Bishop  of  Strassburg,  accompanied 
Otho  TV.  on  his  coronation  expedition  to  Rome.  We  have  seen 
(p.  192)  how  some  of  the  ecclesiastics  in  the  emperor's  train  were 
scandalized  by  the  almost  open  toleration  of  heretics  in  the  papal 
city ;  possibly  recriminations  may  have  passed  between  the  Ger- 
man and  the  Itahan  prelates,  and  the  former  may  have  been  rec- 
ommended to  look  more  sharply  after  the  orthodoxy  of  their 
own  dioceses.  Be  this  as  it  may,  Bishop  Henry  is  said  to  have 
carried  home  with  him  some  theologians  eager  to  punish  aberra- 
tions from  the  faith,  and  a  little  investigation  showed  to  his  horror 
that  his  land  was  full  of  misbelievers.  A  searching  inquest  was 
organized,  and  he  soon  had  five  hundred  prisoners  representing  all 
classes  of  society.  He  was  a  humane  man,  as  the  times  went,  and 
he  sincerely  sought  their  conversion,  to  which  end  he  set  on  foot 
disputations,  but  his  clergy  were  no  match  for  the  sectaries  in 
knowledge  of  Scripture,  and  the  faith  gained  little  by  the  attempt, 
Recourse  to  stronger  measures  was  evidently  requisite,  and  he 
announced  that  all  who  were  obstinate  should  be  burned.  This 
brought  most  of  them  to  their  senses ;  heretic  books  and  writings 
were  eagerly  surrendered,  and  the  converts  abjured.  About  a  hun- 
dred of  them,  however,  under  the  persuasion  of  their  leader,  a 
priest  of  Strassburg  named  John,  were  obdurate,  including  twelve 
priests,  twenty-three  women,  and  a  number  of  nobles.  So  ignorant 
were  the  episcopal  officials  of  the  method  of  proceeding  against 
heretics  that  they  were  utterly  at  a  loss  how  to  convict  these 
recusants ;  some  form  of  trial  seems  to  have  been  thought  neces- 
sary, and  resort  was  had  to  the  old  expedient  of  the  red-hot  iron 
ordeal.  The  heretics  protested  against  it  as  a  manifest  tempting 
of  God,  but  their  objections  were  unavaihng ;  those  who  denied 
their  heresy  were  subjected  to  it,  and  naturally  but  few  escaped- 


THE    HERETICS    OF    STRASSBURG.  317 

One  of  them,  named  Reinhold,  appealed  to  Innocent  III.  against 
this  form  of  trial,  and  the  pope  promptly  responded  by  forbidding 
its  further  use  in  such  matters,  although  we  are  told  by  contem- 
poraries that  its  efficacy  was  abundantly  proved  b}'^  miracles. 
One  of  the  heretics  who  repented  at  the  last  moment  was  divinely 
cured  of  his  bum  and  was  discharged.  Returning  home  rejoicing, 
his  wife  upbraided  him  with  his  weakness,  and  under  her  reproof 
he  relapsed.  Immediately  the  burn  reappeared,  and  a  similar  one 
was  developed  on  the  hand  of  the  wife,  inflicting  such  agony  that 
neither  could  restrain  their  screams.  Fearing  to  betray  themselves, 
they  rushed  to  the  woods,  where  they  yeUed  like  wild  beasts ;  this 
led  to  their  speedy  discovery,  and  before  the  ashes  of  their  con- 
federates were  yet  cold  they  both  shared  the  same  fate.  More 
fortunate  was  one  of  a  number  of  heretics  convicted  in  this  man- 
ner at  Cambrai  about  the  same  time.  On  his  way  to  the  stake  he 
listened  to  the  exhortations  of  a  priest  and  commenced  to  repent 
and  confess.  As  he  did  so  his  hand  began  to  heal,  and  when  he 
received  absolution  there  was  no  trace  left  of  the  burn.  Then  the 
priest  called  attention  to  him,  pronouncing  him  innocent,  and  on 
the  evidence  of  his  uninjured  hand  he  was  discharged.  At  Strass- 
burg  there  were  eighty  obstinate  ones,  whose  heresy  was  proved 
by  the  ordeal.  They  were  all  burned  the  same  day  in  a  ditch  be- 
yond the  waUs,  and  in  the  sixteenth  century  the  hollow  was  stiU 
known  to  the  citizens  as  the  Ketzergrube.  The  property  of  the 
condemned  was  duly  confiscated  and  was  divided  between  the 
magistrates  and  those  who  had  labored  so  successfully  in  vindicat- 
ing the  faith.*        

*  Kaltner,  Konrad  von  Marburg,  Prag,  1882,  pp.  41-5.  —  Frag.  Hist.  (Urstisii 
Scriptt.  P.  n.  p.  89). — Chronik  des  Jacob  v.  Kouigshofen  (Chroniken  der  deutch- 
en  Stadte,  IX.  649).— Tri them.  Chron.  Hirsaug.  ann.  1215.— H.  Mutii  Chron.  Lib. 
XIX.  ann.  1212.— Innoc.  PP.  HI.  Regest.  xiv.  138. — Caesar.  Heisterb.  Dist.  in.  cap. 
16, 17. 

On  the  authority  of  Daniel  Specklin,  a  Strassburg  annalist  who  died  in  1589, 
Bishop  Henry  is  said  to  have  met  St.  Dominic  in  Rome,  to  have  promised  him 
and  Innocent  III.  to  introduce  the  Dominican  Order  in  Strassburg,  and  to  have 
taken  some  members  home  with  him,  who  speedily  multiplied  to  about  a  hun- 
dred, and  distinguished  themselves  by  the  persecution  related  in  the  text  (Kalt- 
ner, loc.  cit. ;  of.  Hoffman,  Geschichte  der  Inquisition  II.  365-71).  At  this  period, 
as  we  have  seen  in  a  former  chapter,  Dominic  was  laboring  ohsoiirely  in  Langue- 
doc,  and  it  was  not  until  1214  that  the  liberality  of  Pierre  Cella  suggested  to  him 


318  GERMANY. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Strassburg  was  a  solitary  centre 
of  heresy,  and  that  this  was  the  only  case  of  contemporary  persecu- 
tion. Fragmentary  allusions  to  the  detection  and  punishment  of 
misbelief  in  other  places  during  the  next  few  years  show  that  the 
population  of  the  Khinelands  was  deeply  infected,  and  that  when 
the  ignorance  and  sloth  of  the  clergy  permitted  detection,  heretics 
were  ruthlessly  exterminated.  The  event  at  Strassburg,  however, 
happens  to  have  been  reported  with  a  fulness  of  detail  which  in- 
vests it  with  peculiar  importance  as  revealing  the  methods  of  the 
episcopal  inquisition  of  the  period,  and  the  nature  of  existing  re- 
ligious dissidence.* 

The  Cathari  appear  to  have  virtually  disappeared  from  Ger- 
many, where  their  foothold,  at  best,  had  been  precarious.  German 
soil  seems  to  have  been  unpropitious  to  this  essentially  Southern 
growth.  On  the  other  hand,  Waldenses  were  numerous,  together 
with  sectaries  known  as  Ortlibenses  or  Ordibarii. 

We  have  already  seen  how  rapidly  Waldensianism  extended 
from  Burgundy  to  Franche  Comte  and  Lorraine,  and  how,  in  1199, 
Innocent  III.,  after  vainly  endeavoring  to  persuade  the  Waldenses 
of  Metz  to  surrender  their  vernacular  Scriptures,  had  sent  thither 
the  Abbot  of  Citeaux  and  two  other  abbots  to  repress  their  zeal. 
The  abbots  duly  performed  their  mission,  preached  to  the  misguid- 
ed zealots,  and  burned  all  such  copies  of  the  forbidden  books  as 
they  could  lay  their  hands  on,  though  it  is  fair  to  presume,  from 
the  silence  of  the  chronicler,  that  no  human  victims  expiated  at 
the  stake  their  unlawful  studies.  The  consequence  of  this  mis- 
placed lenity  was  the  emboldenment  of  the  heretics.  Some  years 
later  when  Bishop  Bertrand  was  preaching  in  the  cathedral  he 
saw  two  whom  he  recognized,  and  pointed  them  out,  saying, "  I 
see  among  you  missionaries  of  the  Devil ;  there  they  are,  who  in 
my  presence  at  MontpeUier  were  condemned  for  heres}^  and  cast 
out."  The  unabashed  Waldenses,  with  a  companion,  rephed  to 
him  with  insults,  and,  leaving  the  church,  gathered  a  crowd,  to 
whom  they  preached  their  doctrines.  The  bishop  was  powerless 
to  silence  them,  for,  when  he  attempted  to  use  force,  he  found  them 

the  idea  of  assembling  around  him  in  Toulouse  half  a  dozen  kindred  spirits.  It 
was  not  until  1224  that  the  Dominican  convent  in  Strassburg  was  founded  (Kalt- 
ner,  p.  45). 

*  Kaltner,  p.  45. —Hoffmann,  II.  371-2.— Trithem.  Chron.  Hirsaug.  ann.  1215. 


WALDENSES— ORTLIBENSES.  319 

protected  by  some  of  the  most  influential  citizens  of  the  town,  and 
they  were  able  to  disseminate  their  pestiferous  opinions  in  safety. 
Here,  as  in  many  other  places,  quarrels  between  the  people  and 
the  bishop  paralyzed  the  arm  of  the  Church,  and  the  Waldenses 
for  many  years  continued  to  infect  the  city.* 

It  cannot,  therefore,  surprise  us  that  nearly  all  the  heretics 
burned  at  Strassburg  in  1212  belonged  to  this  sect.  From  their 
writings  and  confessions  a  list  of  three  hundred  errors  was  com- 
piled, afterwards  condensed  into  seventeen,  and  these  were  read 
before  them  to  the  people  while  they  were  on  their  way  to  the 
place  of  execution.  Priest  John,  their  leader,  admitted  the  correct- 
ness of  all  save  one  alleging  promiscuous  sexual  intercourse,  which 
he  indignantly  denied.  Those  which  he  admitted  show  how  rapid- 
ly their  doctrines  were  developing  to  their  logical  conclusions,  and 
how  impassable  was  the  gulf  which  already  separated  them  from 
the  Church.  All  the  holy  orders  were  rejected,  and  tliis  already 
led  to  the  abolition  of  sacerdotal  celibacy ;  disbelief  in  purgatory 
was  definitely  adopted,  with  its  consequences  as  to  prayers  and 
masses  for  the  dead,  and  there  had  already  been  invented,  before 
St.  Francis  and  his  followers,  the  dogma  that  Christ  and  his  dis- 
ciples held  no  property,  f 

The  Ortlibenses  or  Ordibarii,  who  were  also  represented 
among  the  victims  of  Strassburg,  demand  a  somewhat  more  de- 
tailed consideration  than  their  immediate  importance  would  seem 
to  justify,  because,  although  comparatively  few  in  numbers,  they 
present  the  earliest  indication  of  a  peculiar  tendency  in  German 
free  thought  which  we  shall  find  reproduce  itself  in  many  forms, 
and  constitute,  with  almost  unconquerable  stubbornness,  the  prin- 
cipal enemy  with  which  the  Inquisition  had  to  deal. 

Early  in  the  century  Maitre  David  de  Dinant,  a  schoolman  of 
Paris,  whose  subtlety  of  argumentation  rendered  him  a  favorite 
with  Innocent  III.,  had  indulged  in  dangerous  speculations  derived 


*  Innoc.  PP.  m.  Regest.li.  141, 142,  235.  — Alberic.  Trium  Font.  ann.  1200.— 
Caesar.  Heisterb.  Dist.  v.  c.  20. 

t  Kaltner,  op.  cit.  pp.  69-71, — I  am  rather  inclined  to  believe  that  honest 
Daniel  Specklin  has  drawn  to  some  extent  upon  his  own  convictions  for  this  list 
of  errors.  Among  them  he  enumerates  lay  communion  in  both  elements.  As  the 
cup  at  this  time  had  not  been  withdrawn  from  the  laity,  its  administration  would 
not  have  been  characterized  as  a  heresy. 


320  GERMANY. 

from  the  Aristotelian  philosophy,  as  transmitted  through  the  Arab 
commentators,  adulterated  with  neo-Platonic  elements,  which  trans- 
muted the  theism  of  the  Greek  into  a  kind  of  mystic  pantheism. 
These  speculations  were  carried  still  further  by  his  feUow-school- 
man,  Amauri  de  Bene,  a  favorite  of  the  heir-apparent.  Prince 
Louis.  His  views  were  condemned  by  the  university  in  1204 ;  he 
appealed  to  the  Holy  See,  but  was  compelled  to  abjure  in  1207, 
when  he  is  said  to  have  died  of  mortification.  He  had  disciples, 
however,  who  propagated  his  doctrines  in  secret.  They  were 
mostly  men  of  education  and  intelligence,  theologians  of  the  uni- 
versity and  priests,  except  a  certain  goldsmith  named  Guillaume, 
who  was  esteemed  as  the  prophet  of  the  little  sect.  It  was  im- 
possible that  bold  speculations  of  this  nature  should  remain  station- 
ary, and  the  theoretical  premises  of  David  and  Amauri  were 
carried  to  unexpected  conclusions  in  the  effort  to  reduce  them 
into  a  system  for  proselytism  among  the  people.  Amauri  had 
taught  that  God  was  the  essence  of  all  creatures,  and,  as  light  could 
not  be  seen  of  itself,  but  only  in  the  air,  so  God  was  invisible  ex- 
cept in  his  creatures.  The  inevitable  deduction  from  this  was  that 
after  death  all  beings  would  return  to  God,  and  in  him  be  unified 
in  eternal  rest.  This  swept  away  the  doctrines  of  future  retribu- 
tion, purgatory,  and  hell,  and,  as  the  Amaurians  did  not  fail  to 
point  out,  the  innumerable  observances  through  which  the  Church 
controlled  the  consciences  and  the  wealth  of  men  through  its  power 
over  the  keys  and  the  treasury  of  salvation.  As  this  was  de- 
structive to  the  ecclesiastical  system,  so  was  the  doctrine  equally 
subversive  of  morality,  which  taught  that  such  was  the  virtue  of 
love  and  charity  that  whatever  was  done  in  their  behalf  could  be 
no  sin,  and,  further,  that  any  one  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost  was 
impeccable,  no  matter  what  crime  he  might  commit,  because  that 
Spirit,  which  is  God,  cannot  sin,  nor  can  man,  who  is  nothing  of 
himself,  so  long  as  the  Spirit  of  God  is  in  him.* 

There  was  in  these  utterances  an  irresistible   attraction  to 


*  Tocco,  L'Heresia  nel  Medio  Evo,  p.  21. — D'Argeutrg,  Collect.  Judic.  1. 1. 127. 
— Caesar.  Heisterbac.  v.  22. — Nich.  Trivetti  Chron.  ann.  1215  (D'Achery  Spicileg. 
III.  185.— Rigord.  de  Gest.  Phil.  Aug.  ann.  1210.  —  Guillel.  Nangiac.  ann.  1210.— 
Eymeric.  Direct.  Inquis.  P.  n.  Q.  vii. — Cf.  Renan,  Averrofes  et  I'Averrolsme,  3d  Ed. 
pp.  220-4. 


THE    AMAURIANS.  321 

minds  prone  to  mystic  exaltation.  Even  the  orthodox  Csesarius 
of  Heisterbach  argues  that  much  is  permitted  to  the  saints  which  is 
forbidden  to  sinners ;  where  is  the  Spirit  of  God,  there  is  liberty — 
have  charity,  and  do  what  thou  pleasest.*  When  the  fatal  word 
had  once  been  spoken,  it  could  not  be  hushed  to  silence,  and,  in 
spite  of  the  most  persistent  and  unsparing  efforts  of  repression, 
these  dangerous  heights  of  superhuman  spirituality  continued  to 
be  the  goal  of  men  dissatisfied  with  the  limitations  of  frail  hu- 
manity, down  to  the  time  of  Molinos  and  the  Illuminati,  and 
the  influence  of  the  doctrine  is  to  be  traced  in  the  reveries  of 
Madame  Guyon  and  the  Quietists. 

Yet  the  Amaurian  heresy  was  speedily  crushed  in  its  place  of 
origin.  In  his  proselyting  zeal,  Guillaume  the  goldsmith,  in  1210, 
approached  a  certain  Maitre  Kaoul  de  Nemours,  who  feigned 
readiness  of  conviction,  and  reported  the  matter  to  Pierre,  Bishop 
of  Paris,  and  Maitre  Kobert  de  Curzon,  the  papal  supervisor  of 
preaching  in  France.  By  their  advice  he  pretended  conversion 
and  accompanied  the  Amaurians  on  a  missionarj^  tour  which  lasted 
for  three  months  and  extended  as  far  as  Langres.  We  learn  some- 
thing of  the  habits  of  the  sectaries  when  we  are  told  that  to  keep 
up  the  deception  he  would  pretend  to  be  "wrapped  in  ecstasy,  with 
face  upturned  to  heaven,  and  on  recovering  himself  would  relate 
the  visions  which  had  been  vouchsafed  to  him,  though  he  success- 
fully evaded  the  requests  that  he  should  preach  the  new  doctrines 
in  public.  When  f uUy  informed  as  to  aU  details,  he  communicated 
with  the  authorities,  and  arrests  were  made.  A  council  of  bishops 
was  convened  in  Paris  which  found  no  difficulty  in  condemning 
all  concerned ;  those  who  were  in  orders  were  degraded,  and  they 
were  all  handed  over  to  the  secular  authorities.  There  were  as  yet 
no  laws  defining  the  punishment  of  heresy,  so  their  fate  was  post- 
poned until  the  return  of  the  king,  who  was  then  absent.  The 
result  was  that  four  of  the  leaders  were  imprisoned  for  life  and 
ten  were  burned,  who  met  their  fate  with  unshrinking  calmness. 
The  simple  folk  of  both  sexes  who  had  been  seduced  into  follow- 
ing them  were  mercifuUy  spared.  A  few  executions  took  place 
elsewhere,  such  as  that  of  one  of  the  heresiarchs,  Maitre  Godin, 
who  was  tried  and  burned  at  Amiens;  the  remains  of  Amauri 


•  Cassar.  Heisterb.  vi.  5. 
II.— 21 


GERMANY. 

were  exhumed  and  exposed  to  the  dogs,  after  which  his  bones 
were  scattered  in  the  fields ;  the  writings  of  the  enthusiasts  were 
forbidden  to  be  read ;  the  study  of  natural  science  in  the  univer- 
sity was  suspended  for  three  years,  and  the  works  of  Aristotle, 
which  had  given  rise  to  the  heresy,  were  publicly  burned.* 

The  doctrine  of  impeccabihty  was  likely  to  give  loosened  rein 
to  human  passion  in  those  whose  spiritual  exaltation  did  not  lift 
them  above  the  weakness  of  the  flesh,  and  there  may  be  truth  in 
the  accusations  current  against  the  Amaurians,  that  the  disciples 
of  both  sexes  abandoned  themselves  to  scandalous  license,  under 
the  pretext  of  yielding  to  the  demands  of  Christian  love.  Yet 
the  popular  designation  of  Papelards  bestowed  on  the  sectaries 
show  that  they  at  least  preserved  an  exterior  of  sanctity  and  de- 
votion, and  that  they  prudently  abstained  from  putting  into  prac- 
tice their  theories  of  the  uselessness  of  the  sacraments  and  of  all 
external  cult. 

The  heresy  was  thus  crushed  in  its  birthplace,  where  we  hear 
no  more  of  it  except  that  there  were  teachers  of  it  in  Dauphine, 
where  they  were  confounded  with  the  Waldenses,  and  that  in  1225 
Honorius  III.  ordered  the  destruction  of  the  Periphyseos  of  Eri- 
gena,  which  was  thought  to  have  given  rise  to  Amauri's  specula- 
tions. The  seed,  however,  was  widely  scattered,  to  bear  fruit  in 
foreign  soil.  The  University  of  Paris  drew  together  eager  search- 
ers after  knowledge  from  every  country  in  Europe,  and  it  could 
not  be  difficult  for  the  Amaurians  to  find  among  those  from 
abroad  converts  who  would  prove  useful  missionaries.  In  1215, 
Robert  de  Curzon  includes  the  works  of  a  certain  Maurice  the 
Spaniard  in  his  condemnation  of  those  of  David  and  Amauri.  An- 
other disciple  is  said  to  have  been  OrtUeb  of  Strassburg,  the  teacher 
of  the  sectaries  known  by  his  name  whose  fate  we  have  seen  at 
Strassburg.     That  the  heresy  was  known  not  to  be  extinguished 


•  Rigordus  de  Gest.  Phil.  Aug.  ann.  1210.— Cliron.  Cauon  Laudunens.  ann.  1212. 
— ChroD.  de  Mailros  ann.  1210. — Chron.  Turoncns.  ann.  1'^  10. —Caesar.  Heisterb.  v. 
22.— Chron.  Breve  S.  Dionys.  ann.  1209.— Grandes  Chrouiques,  IV.  139.— Guillel. 
Brito  (Bouquet  XVII.  82  sqq.).— D'Argentrg,  Coll.  Judic.  1. 1.  128-33.— Harduin. 
Concil.  VI.  II.  1994.— Chron.  Engelhusii  (Leibnitz,  S.  Rer.  Brunsv.  II.  1113). 

William  the  goldsmith,  under  the  title  of  Gulielmus  Aurifex,  retains  his  place 
in  the  Index  Librorum  Prohibitorum  to  the  present  day  (Migne,  Dictionnaire  dea 
H^rgsics,  II.  1056).     Cf.  Reusch,  Der  Index  der  verboteuen  Biicher,  1. 17. 


BRETHREN    OF    THE    FREE    SPIRIT.  323 

is  shown  by  the  fact  that  in  1215  the  great  Council  of  Lateran 
still  deemed  it  necessary  to  utter  a  formal  condemnation  of  the 
doctrines  of  Amauri,  which  it  stigmatized  as  crazy  rather  than 
heretical.* 

We  know  little  of  the  faith  originally  professed  by  the  Breth- 
ren of  the  Free  Spirit,  as  the  followers  of  Ortlieb  called  themselves. 
The  principal  account  we  have  of  their  doctrines  in  the  thirteenth 
century  concerns  itself  much  more  with  the  results  in  denying 
the  efficacy  of  sacerdotal  observances  than  with  the  principles 
which  led  to  those  results ;  but  there  are  indications  of  pantheism 
in  the  assertion  of  the  eternity  of  the  uncreated  universe,  in  the 
promise  of  eternal  life  to  all,  while  denying  the  resurrection  of  the 
flesh,  and  in  the  mystic  representation  of  the  Trinity  by  three  mem- 
bers of  the  sect.  No  immorality  is  attributed  to  them ;  nay,  the 
severest  continence  was  prescribed  by  them,  even  in  marriage ;  the 
only  generation  of  children  permitted  was  spiritual,  through  con- 
version, while  homicide,  lying,  and  oaths  were  strictly  forbidden. 
It  is  quite  probable  that  in  Alsace  the  prevalence  of  Waldensian- 
ism  and  the  sympathies  born  of  common  proscription  may  have 
considerably  modified  the  opinions  of  the  disciples  of  Ortlieb. 
They  were  by  no  means  exterminated  in  the  persecutions  of  1212, 
and  we  hear  of  further  pursuit  against  them  in  1216,  extending 
as  far  as  Thurgau,  in  Switzerland.  About  the  middle  of  the  cen- 
tury they  are  described  as  prevailing  in  Suabia,  especially  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Nordlingen  and  Oettingen,  and  Albertus  Magnus 
thought  them  of  sufficient  importance  to  draw  up  an  elaborate  list 
of  their  errors,  f 

It  was  not  long  before  another  consequence,  especially  shock- 
ing to  the  faithful,  was  di'awn  from  the  fruitful  premises  of  pan- 
theism. If  God  was  the  essence  of  all  creatures,  Satan  himself 
could  not  be  excepted ;  if  all  were  to  be  eventually  reunited  in 
God,  Satan  and  his  angels  could  not  be  condemned  to  eternal  per- 


*  Steph.  de  Borbone  (D'Argentrg  I.  i.  88).  —  Potthast  No.  7348.  — Pelayo, 
Heterodoxos  Espanoles,  I.  410. — Concil.  Lateran.  IV.  c.  2. 

For  the  connection  between  the  speculations  of  Erigena  and  those  of 
Amauri  see  Poole's  "Illustrations  of  the  History  of  Medieval  Thought,"  Lon- 
don, 1884,  p.  77. 

tAnon.  Passaviens.  c.  C  Olag.  Bih.  Pat.  XIIL  300-2).  —  Kaltner,  pp.  C4-5. 
— Haupt,  Zeitschrift  fur  Kirchengeschiclite,  1885,  p.  507. 


324  GERMANY. 

tlition.  So  infinite  were  the  conclusions  which  flowecl  from  the 
bold  assumptions  of  the  Amaurians,  that  those  who  accepted  their 
views  inevitably  diverged  in  the  applications,  as  they  attributed 
greater  or  less  importance  to  one  series  of  propositions  or  another. 
There  were  some  who  took  special  interest  in  this  theory  as  to  Sa- 
tan, and  as  their  utterances  were  peculiarly  exasperating  to  the 
orthodox,  they  were  designated  as  a  separate  sect  under  the  name 
of  Luciferans,  Of  these  we  hear  much  but  see  little.  Their  doc- 
trines were  exaggerated  into  devil-worship,  and  they  were  included 
in  the  list  of  heretics  to  be  periodically  anathematized  with  a  zeal 
which  attributed  to  them  vastly  greater  importance  than  their 
scanty  numbers  deserved.  Probably  this  was  because  they  were 
peculiarly  well  adapted  to  serve  as  a  stimulus  for  a  healthy  popu- 
lar abhorrence  of  heresy.  The  most  extravagant  and  repulsive 
stories  were  circulated  as  to  their  hideous  rites,  which  gradually 
took  shape  under  the  current  superstitions  as  to  witchcraft,  which 
they  aided  to  formulate  and  render  concrete.  At  the  period  un- 
der consideration  they  formed  the  basis  of  the  wildest  and  most 
ferocious  epidemic  of  persecution  that  the  world  had  yet  seen. 

The  first  indication  we  have  of  this  tendency  occurs  in  the  case 
of  Henry  Minneke,  Provost  of  the  Cistercian  nunnery  of  ISTeuwerke 
in  Goslar,  which  is  further  of  interest  as  showing  how  utterly,  at 
the  close  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  thirteenth  century,  Germany 
was  destitute  of  any  inquisitorial  machinery,  and  how  ignorant 
were  her  prelates  as  yet  of  inquisitorial  procedure.  In  1222  Min- 
neke was  accused  before  his  bishop,  the  fanatic  Conrad  von  Reisen- 
berg  of  Hildesheim,  of  certain  heretical  opinions.  An  assembly 
of  prelates  was  held  at  Goslar,  which  took  testimony  of  his  nuns, 
and  found  him  guilty.  He  was  simply  ordered  to  teach  his  doc- 
trines no  longer.  When  he  disobeyed  he  was  summoned  before 
Bishop  Conrad,  who  examined  him  for  three  days  and  sentenced 
him  to  return  to  his  Premonstratensian  monastery,  and  ordered  the 
nuns  to  elect  another  provost.  To  this,  again,  he  paid  no  atten- 
tion, probably  considering  that  his  immunities  as  a  monk  exempted 
him  from  episcopal  jurisdiction,  and  the  bishop  seems  to  have  had 
no  resource  but  to  implore  the  intervention  of  Honorius  III. 
When  the  pope  ordered  the  sentence  executed,  the  nuns  inter- 
jected an  appeal  back  to  him  and  to  the  emperor.  Both  appeals 
were  rejected ;  Minneke  was  declared  a  diseased  member  of  the 


CASE    OF    HENRY    MINNEKE.  325 

Church,  fit  only  to  be  cut  ofP,  and  the  nuns  were  told  that  they 
should  rejoice  in  being  liberated  from  his  influence.  Still  he  re- 
mained firm,  and  the  bishop  was  obliged  to  consult  the  Cardinal- 
legate,  Cinthio  of  Porto,  before  he  ventured  to  throw  the  indomi- 
table heretic  into  prison.  From  his  jail,  Minneke  himself  appealed 
to  the  pope,  asserting  that  he  had  been  condemned  unheard,  pray- 
ing for  an  examination,  and  offering  to  submit  to  incarceration  for 
life  if  he  should  refuse  to  recant  any  erroneous  opinions  of  wliich 
he  might  be  convicted.  Honorius  thereupon,  in  ]VIay,  1224:,  ordered 
Bishop  Conrad  to  bring  his  prisoner  before  the  legate  and  an 
assembly  of  prelates  for  a  final  hearing  and  judgment.  About 
October  1,  at  Bardewick,  Cinthio  met  an  assembly  of  the  bishops 
of  North  Germany,  where  it  was  decided  that  Minneke  was  con- 
victed of  having  encouraged  the  nuns  to  regard  him  as  greater 
than  any  other  born  of  woman ;  he  had  on  many  points  relaxed 
the  severe  Cistercian  discipline ;  in  his  sermons  he  had  declared 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  was  the  Father  of  the  Son,  and  had  so  exalted 
the  state  of  virginity  as  to  represent  marriage  as  a  sin ;  in  a  vision 
he  had  seen  Satan  praying  to  be  forgiven,  and  he  had  asserted  that 
in  heaven  there  was  a  woman  greater  than  the  Virgin,  whose  name 
was  Wisdom.  Still  another  synod,  held  at  Hildesheim,  October 
22,  was  requisite  to  conclude  the  matter.  Minnelce  was  brought 
before  it,  was  convicted  of  his  errors,  and  degraded  from  the  priest- 
hood, but  even  yet  Bishop  Conrad  was  so  little  sure  of  his  author- 
ity that  the  sentence  was  published  under  tlie  seal  of  the  legate. 
The  culprit  was  handed  over  to  the  secular  authorities,  and  was 
duly  burned  in  1225.  The  prominence  accorded  to  this  assertion, 
that  Satan  desired  forgiveness,  is  shown  by  his  being  stigmatized 
as  a  Manichaean  and  a  Luciferan.* 

This  case  has  a  further  interest  for  us,  inasmuch  as  one  of  the 
participators  in  the  final  judgment  was  a  man  who  filled  all  Ger- 
many with  his  fame,  and  who  was  the  most  perfect  embodiment 
of  the  pure  fanaticism  of  his  time — Conrad  of  Marljurg.  Tiiough 
a  secular  priest  and  holding  himself  aloof  from  l)oth  Mendicant 
Orders,t  Conrad  steeped  himself  in  the  severest  poverty  and  gained 

*  Kaltner,  pp.  90-5.— Hartzlicim  Concil.  German.  III.  515-lG.— Pottliast  No. 
7260.— Chron.  Mont.  Sorcni  ann.  1222  (Menken.  Seriptt.  Rer.  Germ.  II.  2G5).— 
Chron.  Sanpetrin.  Erfurt,  ann.  1322  (lb.  III.  250). 

t  Conrad  of  Murbur'r  was  too  sliiuing  a  Iiu;lit  not  to  be  earnestly  and  per- 


326  GERMANY. 

his  bread  by  beggary.  Though  he  could  have  aspired  to  any  dig- 
nity in  the  Church,  which  reverenced  him  as  its  greatest  apostle, 
and  though  for  years  all  tlie  benefices  of  Thuringia  were  placed 
by  the  Landgrave  Louis  at  his  absolute  disposal,  he  never  accepted 
a  single  preferment.  Devoted  solely  to  the  work  of  the  Lord,  his 
fiery  soul  and  unrelaxing  energies  were  directed  with  absolute  sin- 
gleness of  purpose  to  advancing  the  kingdom  of  heaven  upon 
earth,  according  to  the  light  which  was  in  him.* 

Stern  in  temper  and  narrow  in  mind,  his  bigotry  was  ardent  to 
the  pitch  of  insanity.  What  were  his  conceptions  of  the  duty  of 
man  to  his  Creator  and  how  his  conscience  led  him  to  abuse  un- 
limited authority  can  best  be  judged  by  his  course  as  spiritual 
director  of  St.  Elizabeth  of  Thuringia.  The  daughter  of  Andreas 
of  Hungary,  born  in  1207,  married  in  1221,  at  the  age  of  thirteen, 
to  Louis  of  Thuringia,  one  of  the  most  powerful  of  German  princes, 
a  mother  at  fourteen,  a  widow  at  twenty,  and  dying  of  self-inflicted 


sistently  claimed  by  the  Dominicans  as  an  ornament  of  tlieir  Order.  Their  legend 
relates  that  he  was  miraculously  drawn  into  it  in  1220  l)y  St.  Dominic  himself, 
who  earnestly  desired  him  as  a  colleague,  and  who  promptly  sent  him  to  Ger- 
many with  a  commission  as  inquisitor  (Monteiro,  Historia  da  Sacra  Inquisiyao, 
P.  I.  Liv.  i.  c.  48. — Jac.  de  Voragine  Legend.  Aur.  fol.  90«,  Ed.  1480. — Paramo, 
pp.  248-9),  and  RipoU  assumes  it  as  a  matter  of  course,  though  he  failed  to  fur- 
nish us  with  the  promised  dissertation  to  prove  it  (B  '11.  Domin.  I.  20,  52).  Sec 
also  Kaltner,  pp.  76-82.  The  claim  is  based  upon  his  inquisitorial  activity,  his 
voluntary  poverty,  and  the  title  of  prcBdicato7\  which  lie  bore  in  virtue  of  a  papal 
commission — arguments  flimsy  enough,  but  better  tlinn  that  of  his  latest  cham- 
pion, Hausrath,  who  cites  an  expression  in  a  letter  of  Gregory  IX.  characterizing 
Conrad  as  the  watch-dog  of  the  Lord — "  Dominicus  cards  "  (Hoflfraan,  Geschichte 
d.  Inq.  IL  392).  Of  course  a  negative,  such  as  the  present,  can  only  be  proved 
by  negatives,  but  these  are  sufficient.  In  numerous  letters  to  him  from  Honorius 
III.  and  Gregory  IX.  he  is  never  addressed  as  "  Frater,'"  tlie  term  invariably  used 
by  the  Mendicants.  The  superscription  always  is  "  Magidro  Conrado  de  Marburc. 
prmdicatori  Verhi  Dei,  or  the  equivalent — Conrad  being  presumably  a  master  in 
theology  (Epistt.  Saec.  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  51, 117,  118,  126,  361,  362,  484,  533,  537). 
Similarly  in  the  chronicles  of  the  time  he  is  never  spoken  of  as  "  Frater,^''  but  al- 
ways as  "  Magister  Conradus.^^  Besides,  Theodoric  of  Thuringia,  himself  a  Do- 
minican, and  almost  a  contemporary,  in  his  life  of  St.  Elizabeth  describes  Conrad 
in  the  most  exalted  terms,  w  ithout  claiming  him  for  his  Order,  which  he  could 
not  have  avoided  doing  had  tliere  been  ground  for  it  (Cauisii  Tiiesiaur.  IV.  116). 
*  Theod.  Thuriug.  de  S.  Eliz.  Lib.  in.  c.  10  (Cauisii  Thesayr.  IV.  130).— Pott- 
hast  No.  7930.— Epistt.  Scec.  Xm.  T.  I.  No.  361. 


ST.   ELIZABETH    OF    THURINGIA.  327 

austerities  in  her  twenty-fourth  year,  Elizabeth  was  the  rarest  type 
of  womanly  gentleness  and  self-abnegation,  of  all  Christian  virtues 
and  spiritual  aspirations.  When  but  eighteen  years  of  age  she 
placed  herself  under  Conrad's  direction,  and  he  proceeded  to  dis- 
cipline this  heavenly  spirit  with  a  ferocity  worthy  of  a  demon. 
Such  implicit  obedience  did  he  exact  that  on  one  occasion  when 
he  had  sent  for  her  to  hear  him  preach,  and  she  was  unable  to  do 
so  on  account  of  an  unexpected  visit  from  her  sister-in-law,  the 
Margravine  of  Misnia,  he  angrily  declared  that  he  would  leave 
her.  She  went  to  him  the  next  day  and  entreated  for  pardon ; 
on  his  continuing  obdurate,  she  and  her  maidens,  whom  he  blamed 
for  the  matter,  cast  themselves  at  his  feet,  when  he  caused  them 
all  to  be  stripped  to  their  shifts  and  soundly  scourged.  It  is  no 
wonder  that  he  inspired  her  with  such  terror  that  she  was  wont  to 
say  "  If  I  so  much  dread  a  mortal  man,  how  is  God  to  be  rightly 
dreaded  ?"  After  the  death  of  Louis,  whom  she  tenderly  loved, 
and  when  his  brother  Henry  despoiled  her  and  drove  her  out,  pen- 
niless, with  her  children,  she  submitted  with  patient  resignation 
and  earned  her  living  by  beggary ;  and  when  he  was  forced  to 
compound  for  her  dower-rights  with  money,  she  made  haste  to 
distribute  it  in  charity.  Under  the  influence  of  the  diseased  piet- 
ism inculcated  by  Conrad,  she  abandoned  her  children  to  God  and 
devoted  herself  to  succoring  casual  outcasts  and  lepers ;  and  the 
depth  of  her  humility  was  shown  when  scandal  made  busy  %vith 
her  fame  in  consequence  of  her  relations  with  Conrad.  On  being 
warned  of  this  and  counselled  to  greater  prudence,  she  brought 
forth  the  bloody  scourge  which  she  used,  and  said,  "  This  is  the 
love  the  holy  man  bears  to  me.  I  thank  God,  who  has  deigned  to 
accept  this  final  oblation  from  me.  I  liave  sacrificed  everything 
— station,  wealth,  beauty — and  have  made  myself  a  beggar,  intend- 
ing only  to  preserve  the  adornment  of  womanly  modesty  ;  if  God 
chooses  to  take  this  also,  I  hold  it  to  be  a  special  grace."  It  was 
this  spirit,  so  self -abased  and  humble,  that  Conrad's  brutal  fanaticism 
sought  systematically  to  break,  contradicting  her  of  set  purpose 
in  all  things,  and  demanding  of  her  every  possible  sacrifice.  ^Vlere- 
ly  to  add  to  her  afflictions  he  drove  awa}^  one  by  one,  the  faithful 
serving-women  Avho  idolized  her,  finally  expelling  Guda,  who  had 
been  her  loved  companion  since  infancy  in  Hungary  ;  as  they 
themselves  said,  "He  did  this  with  a  good  intention,  because  he 


328  GERMANY. 

feared  our  influence  in  recalling  her  past  splendors,  and  he  wished 
to  deprive  her  of  all  human  comfort  that  she  might  rely  wholly 
on  (Jod."  When  she  disobeyed  his  orders  he  used  to  beat  her  and 
strike  her,  which  she  endured  with  pleasure,  in  memory  of  the 
blows  inflicted  on  Christ.  Once  he  sent  for  her  to  come  to  him 
at  Oldenburg  to  determine  whether  he  would  put  her  into  an  ex- 
tremely rigid  convent  there.  The  nuns  asked  him  to  let  her  visit 
them,  and  he  gave  her  permission,  expecting  that  she  would  de- 
cline in  view  of  the  excommunication  hanging  over  all  intruders 
on  the  sacred  precincts.  Supposing,  however,  that  she  had  leave, 
she  went,  while  her  woman  Irmengard  stood  outside,  received  the 
key,  and  opened  the  door.  For  this  Conrad  made  them  both  lie 
down,  and  ordered  his  faithful  comrade,  Friar  Gerhard,  to  beat 
them  with  a  heavy  rod,  so  that  they  bore  the  marks  of  the  flogging 
for  weeks.  AVell  might,  in  the  next  century,  the  mysterious 
Friend  of  God  in  the  Oberland,  when  speaking  of  St.  Elizabeth, 
remark  that  she  had  abandoned  herself,  in  place  of  to  God,  to  a 
man  far  inferior  to  herself  in  natural  aptitudes  as  well  as  in  the 
gifts  of  divine  grace.* 

The  signiflcance  of  all  this  lies  not  only  in  the  coarse  violence 
of  Conrad's  methods,  which  regarded  torture,  mental  and  physical, 
as  the  most  efficient  aid  to  salvation,  but  also  in  the  arrogance  of 
the  nature  which  could,  without  a  shadow  of  hesitation,  assume 
the  position  of  an  avenging  God  punishing  humanity  for  its  weak- 
ness and  sin.  When  a  man  of  such  a  temper  was  inflamed  with 
the  most  fiery  fanaticism,  was  armed  with  irresponsible  power,  and 
believed  himself  to  be  engaged  in  a  direct  conflict  with  Satan,  his 
mad  enthusiasm  could  lead  only  to  a  catastrophe.  For  the  evil 
which  he  wrought  it  would  be  unjust  to  hold  him  responsible.  The 
crime  lay  with  those  who  could  coolly  select  such  an  instrument, 
work  up  his  crazy  zeal  to  the  highest  pitch,  and  then  let  him  loose 
to  wreak  his  blind  wrath  upon  defenceless  populations. 

Conrad  had  long  been  a  man  of  mark,  and  his  qualities  were 
well  knoAvn  to  those  who  made  use  of  him.  His  burning  eloquence 
was  adapted  to  move  the  passions  of  the  people,  and  as  early  as 
1214  he  had  been  honored  with  a  commission  to  preach  in  Ger- 


*  Kaltuer, pp. 96, 121. —DeDictisIV.Ancillarum  (Menken. Scriptt.Rer.Germ.il. 
2017,2023,2039).— Theodor.  Vit.S.Eliz.  (lb. 2000-1).— Jundt,Les  Amis  deDieu,p.95. 


CONRAD    OF    MARBURG.  329 

many  the  crusade  which  was  one  of  the  objects  for  which  the  gTeat 
Council  of  Lateran  was  assembled.     From  this  time  on  liis  activity 
was  unabated,  and  there  is  probably  truth  in  the  assertion  that  he 
took  part  in  the  occasional  persecutions  of  heresy  which  are  re- 
ported, though  no  details  have  reached  us.     His  mission  as  preach- 
er brought  him  into  direct  relations  with  Rome,  and  his  success 
in  inducing  thousands  to  take  the  cross  gave  him  high  repute  with 
the  curia,  doubtless  enhanced  by  the  disinterestedness  which  asked 
for  no  reward.     He  gradually  came  to  be  employed  as  a  represent- 
ative in  matters  of  importance,  and  his  unwearied  energy  ren- 
dered him  increasingly  useful.     In  1220  he  was  intrusted  with  the 
duty  of  compelling,  by  the  censures  of  the  Church,  the  Emperor 
Frederic  to  fulfil  his  long-delayed  vow  of  leading  an  expedition  to 
the  Holy  Land,  and  he  was  further  made  chief  of  the  business  of 
preaching  in  its  behalf,  by  being  empowered  to  commission  assist- 
ants throughout  Germany.     In  these  letters  he  is  addressed  as 
^^  Scholastictis^^  or  head  of  the  church  schools  in  Mainz,  showing 
that  he  then  held  that  dignity.     In  122T  still  greater  evidence  was 
given  of  the  confidence  reposed  in  him.     In  March  of  that  year 
Gregory  XI.  had  mounted  the  papal  throne  with  full  resolve  to 
crush  the  rising  powers  of  heresy,  and,  if  possible,  to  deprive  it  of 
its  excuse  for  existence  in  the  corruptions  of  the  church  establish- 
ment.    We  have  seen  how,  on  June  20,  1227,  he  tried  the  experi- 
ment in  Florence  of  creating  a  kind  of  inquisition,  with  a  Domini- 
can to  exercise  its  functions.     In  Germany  there  seems  to  have 
been  no  one  but  Conrad  on  whom  to  rely.     June  12,  eight  days 
before  the  commission  issued  to  Giovanni  di  Salerno,  Gregory 
wrote  to  Conrad  commending  highl}'  the  diligence  with  which  he 
was  tracking  and  pursuing  heretics — a  diligence  of  which,  unfortu- 
nately, all  details  are  lost  to  us.     In  order  that  his  labors  might  be 
more  elRcacious,  Conrad  was  directed  and  empowered  to  nominate 
whomsoever  he  might  see  fit  as  his  assistants,  and  with  them  to 
inquire  energetically  after  all  who  were  infected  with  heresy,  so 
that  the  extirpation  of  the  tares  from  the  fields  of  the  Lord  might 
proceed  with  due  authority.     Though  the  Inquisition  was  scarce 
as  yet  even  a  prospective  conception,  this  was  in  effect  an  infoi'inal 
commission  as  inquisitor-general  for  Germany,  and  it  is  probably 
no  injustice  to  Gregory  to  suggest  that  one  of  tiie  motives  ])r()mi)t- 
ing  it  was  the  desire  to  substitute  papal  authority  for  the  episcopal 


330  GERMANY. 

jurisdiction  under  which  the  local  and  spasmodic  persecutions  had 
hitherto  been  carried  on.* 

Eight  days  later,  on  June  20,  another  commission  was  sent 
to  Conrad,  which  increased  enormously  his  power  and  influence. 
The  German  Church  was  as  corrupt  and  depraved  as  its  neighbors, 
and  all  efforts  to  purify  it  had  thus  far  proved  failures.  In  1225 
the  Cardinal-legate  Cinthio  had  assembled  a  great  national  coun- 
cil at  Mainz,  which  had  solemnly  adopted  an  elaborate  series  of 
searching  canons  of  reformation,  that  proved  as  bootless  as  all 
similar  efforts  before  or  since.  Something  more  was  wanted,  and 
the  sternly  implacable  virtue  of  Conrad  seemed  to  point  hun  out 
as  the  fitting  instrument  for  burning  out  the  incurable  cancer 
which  was  consuming  the  vitals  of  the  German  Church.  Gregory, 
whose  residence  beyond  the  Alps  as  legate  had  rendered  him  fa- 
miliar with  its  condition,  describes  its  priesthood  as  abandoned  to 
lasciviousness,  gluttony,  and  all  manner  of  filthy  living,  like  cattle 
putrescing  in  their  own  dung ;  as  committing  habitually  wicked- 
ness which  laymen  would  abhor,  corrupting  the  people  by  their 
evil  example,  and  causing  the  name  of  the  Lord  to  be  blasphemed. 
To  remedy  these  deplorable  evils,  he  now  commissioned  Conrad 
as  reformer,  with  full  powers  to  enforce  the  regulations  of  the 
cardinal-legate,  and  the  monasteries  were  especially  designated  as 
objects  for  his  regenerating  hand.f 

Armed  with  almost  illimitable  powers,  Conrad  was  now  the 
foremost  German  ecclesiastic  of  the  time,  and  we  may  well  under- 
stand the  admiration  of  Theodoric  of  Thuringia,  who  declares  that 
he  shone  like  a  star  throughout  all  Germany.  Yet  at  this  time 
his  ill-balanced  impulsiveness  was  concentrating  his  energies  on 
the  torturing  of  St.  Elizabeth.  There  is  no  trace  of  his  exercising 
his  inquisitorial  functions,  and  the  only  record  of  his  activity  as  a 
reformer  is  his  reorganizing  the  nunnery  of  Nordhausen  by  the 
simple  expedient  of  expelling  the  nuns,  who  all  led  ungodly  lives. 
Yet  his  services  as  a  persecutor  never  were  more  needed.  The 
excommunication  of  the  Emperor  Frederic,  on  Sc^tci^iber  29  of 
the  same  year,  for  temporarily  abandoning  his  crusade,  had  set 


*  Trithem.  Chron.  Hirsaug.  ann.  1214. — Chron.  Sanpetrin.  Erfurtens.  (Menken. 
in.  242).— Kaltner,  pp.  86-7.— Epistt.  Saecul.  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  117,  118,  126,  362. 
t  Hartzheim  III.  521.     Cf.  Concil.  Frizlar.  ann.  1246,  ib.  p.  574.— Ripoll  I.  21. 


SPASMODIC  PERSECUTION.  331 

Church  and  State  fairly  by  the  ears,  and  had  inspired  the  heretics 
with  fresh  hopes.  Everywhere  their  missionary  activity  redoub- 
led, and  the  land  was  said  to  be  full  of  them.  In  each  diocese 
they  had  a  bishop  to  whom  they  gave  the  name  of  the  regular  in- 
cumbent, and  they  pretended  to  have  a  pope  whom  they  called 
Gregory,  so  that,  under  examination,  they  could  swear  that  they 
held  the  faith  of  the  bishop  and  of  Pope  Gregory.  In  1229  the 
Waldenses  were  again  discovered  in  Strassburg,  and  for  several 
yeai's  persecution  continued  there,  resulting  in  burning  many  ob- 
stinate heretics  and  penancing  those  who  yielded.* 

Local  measures  such  as  these  were  manifestly  insuificient,  and 
thus  far  all  efforts  at  a  comprehensive  system  of  persecution  had 
failed.  In  1231  Gregory  was  busily  occupied  in  organizing  some 
more  efficient  method,  and  Germany  was  not  forgotten.  The  Ro- 
man statutes  of  Annibaldo  and  the  papal  edicts  of  that  year,  to 
which  frequent  allusion  has  been  made  above,  were  sent  to  the 
Teutonic  prelates,  June  20,  with  letters  blaming  them  for  their 
lukewarmness  and  lenity,  and  ordering  them  to  put  vigorously  into 
force  the  new  edicts.  Yet  already  there  had  been  sufficient  per- 
secution to  occasion  the  necessity  of  settling  the  novel  questions 
arising  from  the  confiscations,  and  the  Diet  of  Worms,  on  June  2 
of  the  same  year,  had  decided  that  the  allodial  lands  and  the 
movables  should  go  to  the  heirs,  the  fiefs  to  the  lord,  and  in  case 
of  serfs  the  personalty  to  the  master,  thus  excluding  the  Church 
and  the  persecutors  from  any  share.  Under  Gregor3'''s  earnest 
impulsion  the  sluggishness  of  the  bishops  was  somewhat  stimu- 
lated. The  Archbishop  of  Treves  made  a  perquisition  through 
his  city,  and  found  three  schools  of  heretics  in  full  activity.  He 
called  a  synod  for  the  trial  of  those  who  were  captured,  and  had 
the  satisfaction  of  burning  three  men,  and  a  woman  named  Leu- 
chardis,  who  had  borne  the  reputation  of  exceeding  holiness,  but 
who  was  found,  upon  examination,  to  belong  to  the  dreaded  sect 
of  Luciferans,  deploring  the  fall  of  Satan  as  unjustly  banished 
from  heaven.f 

»  Vit.  S.  Eliz.  (Canisii  Tliesaur.  I.  IIG).  —  Joluinn  Rohte.  Chron.  Thiiring. 
(Menken.  II.  1715).— Kaltncr.  pp.  108, 130-J;J.— Gesta  Trcviror.  Episcopp.  c.  172. 
— Trithem.  Chron.  Hirsaug.  ann.  1230. 

t  Hiirtzheim  III.  539,  540.  — Potthast  No.  8078-4.  — Hist.  Diplom.  Frid.  II. 
T.III.  p.  466.— Gest.  Trcviror.  Arcbiopp.  c.  170,  172. 


332  GERMANY. 

Still  the  results  did  not  correspond  to  Gregory's  desires.  In 
October  of  the  same  year  (1231)  he  sought  to  spur  Conrad  on  to  a 
discharge  of  his  duty  by  praising  in  the  most  exalted  terms  his 
activity  and  success  in  exterminating  heretics,  and  by  exhorting 
him,  with  the  same  wealth  of  exaggeration,  to  redoubled  energy. 
The  need  of  earnest  work  was  more  pressing  than  ever.  The 
Archbishops  of  Treves  and  Mainz  had  reported  that  an  apostle  of 
heresy  had  been  sowing  tares  through  all  the  land,  so  that  not 
only  the  cities,  but  the  towns  and  hamlets,  were  infected.  Many 
heresiarchs,  moreover,  each  in  his  own  appointed  district,  were 
laboring  to  overthrow  the  Church.  Conrad  was  therefore  given 
fuU  discretionary  powers ;  he  was  not  even  required  to  hear  the 
cases,  but  only  to  pronounce  judgment,  which  was  to  be  final  and 
without  appeal — justice  to  those  suspect  of  heresy  being,  appar- 
ently, of  no  moment.  He  was  authorized  to  command  the  aid  of 
the  secular  arm,  to  excommunicate  protectors  of  heresy,  and  to 
lay  interdict  on  whole  districts.  The  recent  decrees  of  the  Holy 
See  were  referred  to  as  his  guide,  and  heretics  who  Avould  abjure 
were  to  have  the  benefit  of  absolution,  care  being  taken  that  they 
should  have  no  further  opportunity  of  mischief  —  a  delicate  ex- 
pression for  condemning  them  to  hfelong  incarceration.  "When 
Conrad  received  these  extensive  powers  he  was  so  dangerously  ill 
that  his  hfe  was  despaired  of,  and  before  he  had  fairly  recovered 
St.  Ehzabeth  died,  November  29, 1231.  Harsh  as  was  his  nature, 
her  loss  affected  him  severely,  and  for  a  considerable  time  his  en- 
ergies were  concentrated  on  fruitless  efforts  for  her  canonization. 
In  intervals  of  leisure,  however,  he  exercised  his  powers  on  such 
heretics  as  were  unlucky  enough  to  be  within  easy  reach.  In 
Marburg  itself  many  suspects  were  seized,  including  knights, 
priests,  and  persons  of  condition,  of  whom  some  recanted  and  the 
rest  were  burned.  On  one  excursion  to  Erfurt,  moreover,  in  1232, 
he  took  the  opportunity  to  burn  four  more  victims.* 

Kesults  so  far  below  what  might  reasonably  have  been  expect- 
ed could  not  but  be  disappomting  in  the  extreme  to  Gregory. 


*  Kaltner,  pp.  135-6, 143.— Theod.  Vit.  S.  Eliz.  viii.  1.— Vit.  rythmic.  S.  Eliz. 
(IVIeuken.  II.  2090).— Tbur.  Fortsetzung  d.  Sachs.  Weltchronik  (Pertz,  Scriptt. 
Vernac.  II.  292).— Trithem.  Chron,  Hirsaug.  ann.  1232.— Erphurdian.  Variloq. 
(Menken.  II.  484). 


CONRAD    TORS.  333 

One  expedient  remained — to  try  whether  among  the  Dominicans 
there  might  not  be  found  men  able  and  wiUing  to  devote  them- 
selves fearlessly  and  exclusively  to  the  holy  work.  Between  the 
end  of  1231  and  that  of  1232,  therefore,  commissions  were  sent  to 
various  Dominican  establishments  empowering  their  officials  to 
undertake  the  work.  The  treaty  of  Ceperano,  in  1230,  had  re- 
stored peace  between  the  empire  and  the  papacy,  and  Frederic's 
aid  was  successfully  invoked  to  give  the  imperial  sanction  to  the 
new  experiment.  From  Eavenna,  in  March,  1232,  he  issued  a 
constitution  addressed  to  all  the  prelates  and  potentates  of  the 
empire,  ordering  their  efficient  co-operation  in  the  extirpation  of 
heresy,  and  taking  under  the  special  imperial  protection  all  the 
Mendicants  deputed  by  the  pope  for  that  purpose.  The  secular 
authorities  were  commanded  to  arrest  all  who  should  be  designated 
to  them  by  the  inquisitors,  to  hold  them  safely  until  condemna- 
tion, and  to  put  to  a  dreadful  death  those  convicted  of  heresy  or 
fautorship,  or  to  imprison  for  life  such  as  should  recant  and  ab- 
jure. Relapse  was  punishaljle  with  the  death  -  penalty,  and  de- 
scendants to  the  second  generation  were  declared  incapable  of 
holding  fiefs  or  public  office.* 

Here  were  laws  provided  and  ministers  for  their  enforcement, 
and  the  business  of  vindicating  the  faith  might  at  last  be  ex- 
pected to  prosper.  If  Conrad  was  remiss,  others  would  be 
found  enthusiastically  ready  for  the  work.  So  it  proved.  Sud- 
denly there  appeared  on  the  scene  a  Dominican  named  Conrad 
Tors,  said  to  be  a  convert  from  heresy,  who,  without  special  com- 
mission, commenced  to  clear  the  land  of  error.  He  carried  with 
him  a  layman  named  John,  one-eyed  and  one-handed,  of  thoroughly 
disreputable  character,  who  boasted  that  he  could  recognize  a  her- 
etic at  sight.  Apparently  with  little  more  evidence  than  this, 
Conrad  Tors  raided  from  town  to  town,  condemning  his  victims 
wholesale,  and  those  whom  he  delivered  to  the  magistrates  they 
were  compelled  by  popular  excitement  to  burn.  Soon,  however, 
a  revulsion  of  feeling  took  place,  and  then  the  Dominican  shrewd- 
ly enlisted  the  support  of  the  nobles  by  directing  his  attacks 
against  the  more  wealthy,  and  holding  out  the  pros])ect  of  exten- 
sive confiscations  to  be  divided.     When  remonstrated  with  he  is 


*  Kaltner.  \\  l:U.-  Hist.  Diplom.  Frid.  II.  T.  IV.  pp.  300-2. 


334  GERMANY. 

said  to  have  replied,  "  I  would  burn  a  hundred  innocent  if  there 
was  one  guilty  among  them."  Stimulated  by  this  shining  exam- 
ple, many  Dominicans  and  Franciscans  joined  him,  and  became 
his  eager  assistants  in  the  work.* 

Whether,  as  reported,  Conrad  Tors,  to  strengthen  himself, 
sought  out  Conrad  of  Marburg  and  persuaded  him  to  take  part  in 
the  good  work,  or  whether  the  latter,  scenting  the  battle  from  afar, 
was  aroused  from  his  torpor  and  rushed  eagerly  to  the  fray,  cannot 
positively  be  determined.  This  much  is  certain,  that  at  length  he 
came  forward,  and  not  only  lent  the  weight  of  his  great  name  to 
the  proceedings,  but  urged  them  to  a  crueller  and  wider  develop- 
ment with  all  his  vehemence  of  character  and  implacable  severity. 

The  heresy  of  which  the  miserable  victims  of  this  onslaught 
were  accused  was  not  Waldensian,  but  Luciferan.  Its  hideous 
rites  were  described  in  full  detail  by  Master  Conrad  to  Pope  Greg- 
ory, and  are  worth  repeating  as  illustrating  the  superstitions  con- 
cerning witchcraft  which,  for  centuries,  worked  such  cruel  wrong 
in  every  corner  of  Europe.  Indeed,  it  seemed  inevitable  that  such 
embroideries  should  be  added  by  inquisitorial  craft  or  popular 
credulity  to  the  tenets  of  heretics,  for,  on  the  first  emergence  of 
Catharism  at  Orleans  in  1022,  very  similar  stories  were  told  of 
the  infernal  rites  of  the  heretics,  which  are  repeated  by  Walter 
Mapes  in  the  latter  half  of  the  twelfth  century.f  That  Conrad 
obtained  these  wild  fictions  in  endless  duplication  from  those  who 
stood  before  his  judgment-seat  there  need  be  no  reasonable  doubt. 
The  reports  of  witch-trials  in  later  times  are  too  numerous  and 
authentic  for  us  to  question  the  readiness  of  self-accusation  of 
those  who  saw  no  other  means  of  escape,  or  their  eagerness  to 
propitiate  their  judge  by  responding  to  every  incriminating  sug- 
gestion, and  telling  him  what  they  found  him  desirous  of  hear- 
ing. Crude  as  were  Conrad's  methods,  the  inquisitorial  process 
proved  its  universal  effectiveness  by  their  producing  confessions 
as  surely  as  the  more  elaborate  refinements  invented  by  his  suc- 
cessors, although  he  had  not  the  advantage  of  the  use  of  torture. 


*  Annal.  Wormatiens.  (Hist.  Diplom.  Frid.  II.  T.  IV.  p.  616).— Kaltner,  p.  138. 
— Sachsiche  Weltchronik  ann.  1233.— Gest.  Treviror.  Arcliiepp.  c.  170. 

t  Pauli  Carnotens.  Vet.  Aganon.  Lib.  vi.  c.  3. — Adbemar.  Cabanuens.  ann. 
1022  (Bouquet,  X.  159). — Gualteri  Mapes  de  Nugis  Curialium  Dist.  i.  c.  xxx. 


LUCIFERAN    HERESY.  335 

According  to  these  revelations,  when  a  novice  is  received  into 
the  sect  and  first  attends  the  assembly,  there  appears  to  him  a 
toad,  which  he  kisses  either  on  the  posteriors  or  on  the  mouth  ;  in 
the  latter  case  it  deposits  something  in  his  mouth.  Occasionally 
it  has  the  aspect  of  a  goose  or  of  a  duck,  and  sometiiiies  it  is  as 
large  as  an  oven.  Then  there  comes  to  him  a  man  of  wonderful 
paleness,  with  the  blackest  of  eyes,  and  so  thin  that  he  is  naught 
but  skin  and  bone.  Him  the  novice  likewise  kisses,  findins:  him 
ice-cold,  and  with  that  kiss  all  remembrance  of  the  Catholic  faith 
vanishes  from  his  heart.  Then  all  sit  down  to  a  feast,  after  which, 
from  a  statue  which  is  always  present,  there  descends  a  black  cat, 
as  large  as  a  dog,  with  the  tail  bent  back.  She  comes  down  back- 
wards and  her  posteriors  are  kissed,  first  by  the  novice,  then  Ijy 
the  master  of  the  assembly,  and  finally  by  all  who  are  worthy 
and  perfect,  while  those  who  are  imperfect  and  feel  tliemselves 
unworthy  receive  peace  from  the  master.  Then  each  resumes 
his  place,  songs  are  sung,  and  the  master  says  to  his  next  neigh- 
bor, "  What  does  this  teach  ?"  The  ansAver  is,  "  The  highest 
peace,"  and  another  adds,  "  And  that  Ave  must  obey."  All  lights 
are  then  extinguished  and  indiscriminate  intercourse  takes  place, 
after  which  the  candles  are  relighted,  each  one  takes  his  seat,  and 
from  a  dark  corner  appears  a  man  shining  like  the  sun  in  his  up- 
per half,  Avhile  from  the  liips  down  he  is  black  like  the  cat.  He 
illuminates  the  whole  place,  and  the  master,  taking  a  fragment  of 
the  novice's  garment,  hands  it  to  him,  saying,  "  Master,  I  give  this 
to  thee  Avhich  has  been  given  to  me."  To  this  the  shining  man 
replies,  "  Thou  hast  serA^ed  me  Avell,  thou  Avilt  serve  me  more  and 
better.  I  leaA^e  to  thy  care  Avhat  thou  hast  giA^en  me,"  and  then 
he  disappears.  Each  year  at  Easter  they  receive  the  host,  carry  it 
home  in  their  mouths,  and  spit  it  out  into  a  cesspool  to  show  their 
contempt  for  the  Kedeemer.  They  hold  that  God  unjustly  and 
treacherously  cast  Satan  into  hell;  the  latter  is  the  Creator, 
Avho  in  the  end  Avill  overcome  God,  when  they  expect  eternal 
bliss  Avith  him.  That  which  is  pleasing  to  God  is  to  be  avoided, 
and  that  which  he  hates  is  to  be  cherished. 

This  transparent  tissue  of  inventions  was  apparently  dcmbtod 
by  no  one,  and  it  excited  almost  to  insanity  the  credulous  old  man 
Avho  filled  the  papal  chair.  He  replies  that  he  is  drunk  with  worm- 
wood, and  in  fact  his  letters  read  like  the  ravings  of  a  madman. 


336  GERMANY. 

"  If  against  such  men  the  earth  should  rise  up,  and  the  stars  of 
heaven  reveal  their  iniquity,  so  that  not  only  men,  but  the  ele- 
ments, should  unite  in  their  destruction,  wiping  them  from  the 
face  of  the  earth  without  sparing  sex  or  age,  and  rendering  them 
an  eternal  opprobrium  for  the  nations,  it  would  not  be  a  sufficient 
and  worthy  punishment  of  their  crimes."  If  they  cannot  be  con- 
verted, the  strongest  remedies  must  be  used.  Fire  and  steel  must 
be  applied  to  wounds  incurable  by  milder  applications.  Conrad 
was  instructed  forthwith  to  preach  a  crusade  against  them,  and 
the  bishop  of  the  province,  the  emperor,  and  his  son.  King  Henry, 
were  ordered  to  exert  all  their  powers  for  the  extirpation  of  the 
wretches.* 

The  means  which  Master  Conrad  took  to  obtain  these  avow- 
als from  his  victims  were  simple  in  the  extreme.  The  processes 
of  the  Inquisition  had  not  yet  been  formulated,  and  the  unlimited 
powers  with  which  he  was  clothed  enabled  his  impatient  tem- 
per to  reach  the  desired  goal  by  the  shortest  possible  course.  As 
officially  reported,  after  the  bursting  of  the  bubble,  to  Gregory 
by  his  own  penitentiary,  the  Dominican  Bernard,  and  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Mainz,  the  accused  was  alloAved  simply  the  option  of 
confessing  what  was  demanded  of  him,  and  receiving  penance,  or 
of  being  burned  for  denial— which,  in  fact,  was  the  essence  of  the 
inquisitorial  process,  reduced  to  its  simplest  terms.  Conrad  had 
no  prisons  at  his  disposal  for  the  incarceration  of  penitents,  and 
the  infliction  of  wearing  crosses  seems  to  have  been  unknown  to 
him,  so  he  devised  the  penance  of  shaving  the  head  as  a  mark  of 
humiliation  for  his  converts,  who  were  moreover,  of  course,  obliged 
to  give  the  names  of  aU  whom  they  had  seen  in  the  hideous  noc- 
turnal assemblies. 

At  the  outset  he  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  a  designing 
woman,  a  vagrant  about  twenty  years  old  who  had  quarrelled 
with  her  relations,  and  who,  coming  by  chance  to  Bingen,  and 
observing  what  was  going  on,  saw  her  opportunity  of  revenge. 
She  pretended  to  be  of  the  sect,  that  her  husband  had  been  burned, 
that  she  wished  to  perish  likewise,  but  added  that  if  the  Master 
would  believe  her  she  would  reveal  the  names  of  the  guilty.    Con- 


•  Raynald.  ann.  1233,  No.  41-6.— Epistt.  Saecul.  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  533,  537.— 
Gest.  Treviror.  Archiepp.  c.  171. 


CONRAD   OF  MARBURG'S   PROCEEDINGS.  337 

rad  eagerly  swallowed  the  bait,  and  sent  her  with  his  assistants 
to  Clavelt,  whence  she  came,  where  she  caused  the  burning  of  her 
kindred.  Then  there  was  a  certain  Amfrid,  who  finally  confessed 
that  he  had  led  Conrad  to  condemn  a  number  of  innocent  men. 
Creatures  of  this  kind  were  sure  not  to  be  lacking,  and  it  was  even 
said  that  cunning  heretics  caused  themselves  to  be  accused,  and 
accepted  penance,  for  the  purpose  of  incriminating  Catholics,  and 
thus  rendering  the  whole  proceeding  odious.  As  no  one  had  the 
slightest  opportunity  of  defence,  some  steadfast  men  preferred  to 
be  burned  and  thus  earn  salvation,  rather  than  to  confess  to  lies 
and  falsely  accuse  others.  The  weaker  ones  who  saved  their  lives, 
when  pressed  to  name  their  accomplices,  would  often  say,  "  I  know 
not  whom  to  accuse :  tell  me  the  names  of  those  you  suspect ;" 
or,  when  interrogated  about  individuals,  w^ould  evasively  reply, 
"  They  were  as  I  was ;  they  were  in  the  assemblies  as  I  was," 
which  was  apparently  sufficient.  "  Thus,"  proceeds  the  official 
report  to  the  pope,  "  brother  accused  brother,  the  wife  the  hus- 
band, and  the  master  the  servant.  Others  gave  money  to  the 
shaven  penitents  in  order  to  learn  from  them  methods  of  evasion 
and  escape,  and  there  arose  a  confusion  unknown  for  ages.  I, 
the  arclibishop,  first  by  myself  and  afterwards  with  the  two  arch- 
bishops of  Treves  and  Cologne,  warned  Master  Conrad  to  pro- 
ceed in  so  great  a  matter  with  more  moderation  and  discretion, 
but  he  refused."  * 


*  Alberic  Trium  Font.  ann.  1234.— Godcfrid  S.  Pantaloon,  annul,  ann.  1233. 

It  would  seem  from  this  that  Henry,  Archinshop  of  Cologne,  was  performing 
his  functions  at  this  period,  although  lie  had  been  suspended  by  Gregory  IX. 
in  December,  1231,  pending  an  investigation  into  his  criminal  turpitude,  which 
the  pope  d(;clared  to  be  a  shame  to  describe  and  a  horror  to  liear.  In  April, 
1233,  Gregory  tried  to  make  him  resign,  to  whieli  he  responded  in  June  by  an 
appeal  to  the  Holy  See.  The  immediate  consequence  of  this  was  a  papal  levy  on 
the  clergy  of  Cologne  of  three  hundred  sterling  marks  to  defray  exjienses.  In 
March  of  the  next  year  further  provision  for  the  expenses  was  requisite.  In  April, 
1235,  we  find  him  still  under  excommunication  and  deprived  of  his  functions. 
After  this  he  seems  to  have  re-established  himself,  and  in  March,  1238,  he  was  con- 
demned to  pay  thirteen  hundred  sterling  marks  to  a  Roman  banker  for  expenses 
incurred  many  years  before  by  his  predecessor.  In  May,  1239,  we  find  his  succes- 
sor, Conrad  von  Hoclistaden,  in  Rome  as  archbishop-elect,  and  Gregory  ordering  a 
levy  of  eight  thousand  marks  on  the  province  to  pay  the  debts  due  there  l)y  the  sec 
(Epistt.  Select.  StECul.  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  457,  472,  523,  529-30, 555,  571),  637, 723, 748). 
II.— 22 


338  GERMANY. 

From  this  last  fact  we  gather  that  the  prelates  of  the  land, 
while  not  interfering  effectively  to  protect  their  people,  had,  at 
least,  taken  no  part  in  the  insane  persecution  which  was  raging. 
Conrad  had  found  plenty  of  assistants  among  the  Dominicans  and 
Franciscans,  but  the  secular  hierarchy  had  held  aloof.  In  vain 
had  Gregory,  in  October,  1232,  written  to  them  and  to  the  princes, 
telling  them  that  the  heretics  who  formerly  lay  in  hiding  were 
now  coming  forward  openly,  like  war-horses  harnessed  for  bat- 
tle, publicly  preaching  their  errors  and  seeking  the  perdition  of 
the  simple  and  ignorant.  Faith  was  rare  in  Germany,  he  said, 
and,  therefore,  he  ordered  them  to  make  vigorous  inquisition 
throughout  their  lands,  seizing  all  heretics  and  suspects,  and  pro- 
ceeding against  them  in  accordance  with  the  papal  decrees  of 
1231.  The  appeal  fell  upon  deaf  ears.  The  bishops  seem  to  have 
been  thoroughly  disturbed  by  the  encroachments  which  the  pa- 
pacy was  making  on  their  independence  through  the  new  agen- 
cies which  it  was  bringing  into  play.  The  Mendicant  Orders 
were  already  a  sufficiently  dangerous  factor,  and  now  came  these 
new  inquisitors,  armed  with  papal  commissions,  superseding  their 
time-honored  jurisdiction  in  every  spot  within  their  dioceses.  It 
is  no  wonder  that  they  felt  alarmed,  and  that  they  held  aloof 
The  German  prelates  were  great  secular  princes,  combining  civil 
and  spiritual  authority.  The  three  electoral  archbishops — Mainz, 
Treves,  and  Cologne — stood  on  a  level  as  temporal  lords  with  the 
most  powerful  princes  of  the  empire,  and  the  wide  extent  of  many 
of  the  dioceses  rendered  the  bishops  scarcely  less  formidal)le. 
They  were  always  suffering  from  the  greed  of  the  Roman  curia, 
and  were  perpetually  involved  in  struggles  to  resist  its  encroach- 
ments. Frederic  II.,  indeed,  by  his  constitutions  of  1232,  had 
increased  their  secular  authority  by  rendering  them  absolute  mas- 
ters of  the  episcopal  cities,  whose  municipal  rights  and  liberties 
he  abolished,  but  at  the  same  time  he  had  given,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  imperial  sanction  to  the  papal  Inquisition,  and  had  rendered 
it  everywhere  supreme.  It  is  no  wonder  that  they  felt  aggrieved 
and  alarmed,  that  they  withheld  their  co-operation  as  far  as  they 


This  serves  to  illustrate  the  relatious  between  the  Roman  curia  and  the  great 
German  bishoprics,  the  insatiable  greed  of  the  former,  and  the  fruitless  efforts 
at  emancipation  of  the  latter. 


ACTION    OF    THE    PRELATES.  339 

safely  could,  and  that  well-grounded  jealousy  would  lead  them 
to  seize  the  first  safe  opportunity  of  crushing  the  intruding  up- 
starts.'^ 

Fortunately  for  the  German  people,  Conrad's  blind  reckless- 
ness was  not  long  in  affording  them  the  desired  chance.  Begin- 
ning with  the  lowly  and  helpless,  his  operations  had  rapidly  ad- 
vanced to  the  higher  classes.  In  his  eyes  the  meanest  peasant 
and  the  loftiest  noble  were  on  an  equality,  and  he  was  as  prompt 
to  assail  the  one  as  the  other,  but  his  witnesses  at  first  had  not 
dared  to  accuse  the  high-born  and  powerful.  It  is  quite  possible, 
indeed,  that,  as  the  persecution  became  more  dreadful,  some  of 
them  may  have  felt  that  the  surest  mode  of  bringing  on  a  crisis 
was  to  involve  the  magnates  of  the  land.  Rumors  were  spread 
impugning  the  faith  of  the  Counts  of  Aneberg,  Lotz,  and  Sayn. 
Conrad  eagerly  directed  his  interrogatories  to  obtaining  evidence 
against  them,  and  summoned  them  to  appear  before  him.  Count 
Sayn  was  an  especially  notable  prey,  as  he  was  one  of  the  most 
powerful  nobles  of  the  diocese,  whose  extensive  possessions  were 
guarded  by  castles  renowned  for  strength,  and  whose  reputation 
was  that  of  a  stern  and  cruel  man.  The  crime  of  which  he  was 
accused  was  that  of  riding  on  a  crab,  and  open  defiance  was  ex- 
pected from  him.  Sigfried,  the  Archbishop  of  Mainz,  to  make  a 
show  of  obedience  to  the  papal  commands,  had  called  a  provincial 
council  to  assemble  March  13, 1233.  When  it  met,  it  deplored  the 
prevalence  of  heresy,  from  which  scarce  a  village  in  the  land  was 
free ;  it  prayed  the  prelates  to  labor  zealously  for  the  suppression 
of  the  evil,  commanded  them  to  enforce  in  their  respective  dio- 
ceses the  recent  decrees  of  the  pope  and  of  the  em])eror,  which 
were  to  be  read  and  explained  in  the  local  synods,  so  that  the 
heretics  might  be  frightened  to  conversion ;  it  deprecated  the 
practice  of  seizing  the  property  of  suspects  before  their  guilt  was 
determined ;  it  ordered  the  bishops  to  provide  ])risons  for  coiners 
and  incorrigible  clerks,  without  alluding  to  the  iinpi'isonment  of 
heretics,  although  Gregory,  but  a  few  weeks  before,  had  specially 
ordered  them  to  employ  perpetual  incarceration  in  all  cases  of 
relapse ;  it  endeavored  to  maintain  episcopal  jurisdiction  by  en- 
acting that  inquisitors  must  obtain  letters  from  the  bishop  before 


Hist.  Diplom.  Frid.  H.  T.  IV.  pp.  285-7,  300-3. 


340  GERMANY. 

exercising  their  powers  in  any  diocese ;  finally,  it  anticipated  the 
resistance  of  Count  Sayn  and  the  other  inculpated  nobles,  by  di- 
recting that  if  any  magnate,  relying  upon  the  strength  of  his 
castles  and  the  support  of  his  subjects,  should  refuse  to  appear 
after  three  citations,  his  bisho])  should  preach  a  crusade  against 
him  with  indulgences,  and  he  should  be  manfully  assailed.* 

Thus,  while  ostensibly  obeying  the  commands  of  the  pope  and 
emperor,  the  action  of  the  bishops  was  practically  directed  to 
limiting  the  powers  of  the  inquisitors.  As  for  the  threat  of  a 
crusade,  its  significance  is  seen  in  the  steps  actually  taken  in  the 
case  of  Count  Sayn.  That  shrewd  noble  saw  that  he  could  rely 
upon  episcopal  protection  if  he  could  promise  the  bishops  efiicient 
support,  and  he  had  sufficient  interest  with  King  Henry  to  induce 
him  to  join  with  Sigfried  of  Mainz  in  caUing  a  council  for  July 
25,  to  consider  his  case.  The  king  and  his  princes  attended  the 
assembly  as  well  as  the  prelates,  so  that  it  was  rather  an  imperial 
diet  than  an  ecclesiastical  council.  The  count  asserted  his  inno- 
cence and  offered  to  prove  it  by  conjurators.  Conrad,  who  was 
present,  found  his  position  suddenly  changed.  The  assembly  was, 
in  reahty,  a  national  protest  against  the  supremacy  of  the  papal 
Inquisition,  and  the  inquisitor,  in  place  of  being  a  judge  armed 
with  absolute  jurisdiction,  was  merely  a  prosecutor.  He  presented 
his  witnesses,  but  in  that  august  presence  the  hearts  of  some  of 
them  failed,  and  they  withdrew ;  others  felt  emboldened  to  declare 
that  they  had  been  forced  to  accuse  the  count  in  order  to  save 
their  own  lives,  and  those  who  persisted  were  easily  shown  to  be 
personal  enemies  of  the  accused.  The  whole  assemblage  seemed 
inspired  with  a  common  desire  to  put  an  end  to  Conrad's  arbitrary 
proceedings,  and  the  prosecution  broke  down  totally.  King  Henry 
alone,  perhaps  already  meditating  his  rebellion  against  his  father, 
and  anxious  not  to  offend  either  the  no])lcs  or  the  papacy,  desired 
to  postpone  the  matter  for  further  consideration.  The  count 
pressed  earnestly  for  immediate  judgment,  but  the  Archbishop 
of  Treves  interposed — "  My  lord,  the  king  wishes  the  case  post- 
poned ;"  then  turning  to  the  people,  "  I  announce  to  you  that 
Count  Sayn  departs  from  here  unconvicted,  and  as  a  good  Catho- 


*  Annal.  Wormatiens.  (Hist.  Dip.   Frid.  II.  T.  IV.  pp.  61G-17).— Kaltner, 
pp.  19,  14G  8.— Epistt.  Select.  Saec.  XIII.  No.  514. 


MURDER  OF  CONRAD  OF  MARBURG.      Sii 

He."  Master  Conrad  sullenly  muttered,  "  If  he  had  been  convicted 
it  would  have  been  different,"  and  withdrew.  The  count  finally 
asrreed  to  allow  the  matter  to  be  referred  to  Rome,  and  ecclesias- 
tics  of  distinction  were  appointed  to  lay  the  ])roceedings  before 
the  Holy  See  for  final  decision.* 

Maddened  by  his  defeat,  Conrad  at  once  proceeded  to  preach 
in  the  streets  of  Mainz  a  crusade  against  some  nobles  who  had 
been  summoned  and  who  had  not  appeared.  To  this  both  the 
archbishop  and  the  king  objected,  and  he  was  forced  to  desist. 
With  his  usual  impulsiveness  he  then  abruptly  determined  to  quit 
an  ungrateful  world,  and  to  five  henceforth  in  retirement  at  Mar- 
burg. The  king  and  archbishop  offered  him  an  armed  escort,  but 
he  would  accept  nothing  save  letters  of  surety,  and  with  these  he 
departed  to  meet  his  fate.  Those  against  whom  his  crusade  had 
been  preached  lay  in  wait  for  him  near  Marburg  and  despatched 
him,  July  31,  regardless  of  his  entreaties  for  mercy.  His  faithful 
follower.  Friar  Gerhard,  refused  the  opportunity  offered  him  to 
escape,  threw  himself  on  the  body  of  his  beloved  master,  and  per- 
ished with  him.  The  scene  of  the  murder  is  supposed  to  be  Kap- 
peln  on  the  Lahnsberg,  where  a  chapel  was  erected  to  commemo- 
rate it.  The  body  was  carried  to  Marburg  and  buried  by  the  side 
of  St.  Elizabeth,  and  when  the  latter  was  trauslated  to  the  mag- 
nificent Elizabethskirche,  his  bones  were  likewise  carried  thither.f 

The  immediate  reputation  which  Conrad  left  behind  him  is 
shown  by  the  vision,  related  by  a  contemporary,  which  indicated 
that  he  was  hopelessly  damned.  Modern  ecclesiastics,  however, 
take  a  more  favorable  view  of  his  career,  and  even  the  amiable 
Alban  Butler  describes  him  as  a  virtuous  and  enlightened  priest, 
who  rendered  great  service  by  his  preaching,  and  whose  fervor, 
disinterestedness,  and  love  of  poverty  and  austerity  rendered  him 
a  model  for  his  contemporaries.  Yet,  unaccountably,  the  Church 
has  not  yet  proceeded  to  his  vindication  as  a  martyred  saint,  and 


*  Gest.  Treviror.  Arcliiepp.  c.  174.  —  Sachsiscbe  Weltclironik,  aim.  1233 
(Pertz,  II.  292). — Annal.  Wormaticns.  (loc.  cit.). — Godefrid.  S.  Pantalcon.  Annal. 
ann.  1233. 

t  Sachsiscbe  Weltchrouik,  loc.  cit.— Gest.  Treviror.  loc.  cit. — Alberic.  Trium 
Font.  ann.  1233.  —  Erpburdian.  Variloq.  ann.  1233.  —  Cbron.  Erfordiens.  ann. 
1233  (Schannat  Vindem.  Literar.  I.  93).— Tritbem.  Cbron.  Hirsaug.  ann.  1233.^ 
Kaltner,  pp.  160-1. 


342  GERMANY. 

has  neglected  to  place  him  alongside  of  those  kindred  spirits,  St. 
Peter  Martyr  and  St.  Pedro  Arbues.* 

With  Conrad's  withdrawal  from  the  Council  of  Mainz  the  pro- 
ceedings of  which  he  had  been  the  mainspring  came  to  an  end  at 
once.  "  Thus,"  says  a  contemporary  ecclesiastic,  "  ceased  this 
storm,  the  most  dangerous  persecution  of  the  faithful  since  the 
days  of  Constantius  the  Heretic  and  Julian  the  Apostate.  Peo- 
ple once  more  began  to  breathe.  Count  Sayn  was  a  w^all  for  the 
mansion  of  the  Lord,  lest  this  madness  should  rage  further,  en- 
veloping guilty  and  innocent  alike,  bishops  and  princes,  religious 
and  Catholics,  like  peasants  and  heretics."  The  murderers  evi- 
dently felt  that  they  had  nothing  to  dread  from  public  opinion, 
for  they  voluntarily  came  forward  and  offered  to  submit  them- 
selves to  the  judgment  of  the  Church  as  regards  the  heresy  whereof 
Conrad  had  accused  them,  and  to  the  secular  tribunals  as  regards 
the  homicide,  agreeing  to  present  themselves  for  examination  at  a 
diet  of  the  empire  which  was  ordered  for  February,  1234,  at  Frank- 
fort.f 

Gregory,  who  in  June  had  been  ordering  a  crusade  preached 
against  the  heretics,  and  had  been  stimulating  prince  and  prelate 
to  a  yet  more  ferocious  persecution,  was  moved  to  regret  when 
the  envoy  of  the  assembly  of  Mainz,  Conrad,  the  "  Scholasticus  " 
of  Speier,  presented  letters  from  the  king  and  bishops  describing 
the  arbitrary  methods  of  his  inquisitor.  He  ordered  letters  drawn 
up  prescribing  a  more  regular  form  of  trial  for  heretics ;  but  be- 
fore the  envoy  had  permission  to  depart,  there  arrived  the  origi- 
nator of  the  trouble,  Conrad  Tors,  with  the  pitiful  tale  of  the  Mas- 
ter's martyrdom.  At  this  news  the  emotional  pope  could  not  con- 
tain his  wrath.  The  letters  just  written  were  recalled  and  torn 
up,  and  the  unlucky  envoy  was  threatened  with  the  deprivation 
of  all  his  benefices.  Under  the  remonstrances  of  the  Sacred  Col- 
lege, however,  Gregory's  ire  subsided  sufficiently  to  allow  him  to 
renew  the  letters  and  to  enable  the  envoy  to  depart  unscathed. 
The  pope  solaced  himself,  however,  with  pouring  out  his  grief  at 
fuU  length  in  letters  to  the  German  prelates.  The  death  of  Con- 
rad was  a  thunderclap  which  had  shaken  the  walls  of  the  Chris- 


*  Alberic.  Trium  Font.  ann.  1333. — Alban  Butler,  Vies  des  Saints,  19  Novb'e. 
t  Gest.  Treviror.  c.  174.— Hartzheim  III.  549. , 


REACTION    IN    GERMANY.  343 

tian  sanctuary.  No  words  Tvere  strong  enough  to  describe  the 
transcendant  merits  and  services  of  the  martyr,  and  no  punisli- 
ment  could  be  invented  too  severe  for  the  murderers.  The  bishops 
were  roundly  rated  for  their  indifference  in  the  matter,  and  were 
ordered  to  take  immediate  and  effective  measures.  The  Domini- 
can provincial,  Conrad,  was  commanded,  in  conjunction  with  the 
bishops,  to  carry  on  the  Inquisition  vigorously,  and  to  preach  a 
crusade  against  the  heretics.* 

In  spite  of  this  furious  grief  and  wrath  the  German  prelates 
maintained  a  most  provoking  calmness.  The  fanatic  Conrad,  Bish- 
op of  Hildesheim,  it  is  true,  preached  a  crusade  as  ordered  by  the 
pope,  and  under  his  impulsion  the  Landgrave,  Conrad  of  Thu- 
ringia,  zealously  purged  his  land  of  heretics,  and  completely  de- 
stroyed all  their  assemblies,  levelling  to  the  ground  WiUnsdorf, 
which  was  reckoned  their  chief  abiding-place ;  while  his  brother, 
Henry  Raspe,  and  Hartmann,  Count  of  Kiburg  (Zurich),  took  the 
cross  under  the  same  auspices,  and  received,  in  consequence,  papal 
protection  for  their  dominions.  Even  this  measure  of  activity, 
however,  was  regarded  unfavorably  in  Germany,  and  there  was 
no  response  to  the  cry  for  vengeance.  The  Diet  of  Frankfort  duly 
assembled  February  2,  1234,  and  the  first  business  recorded  was 
an  accusation  brought  by  King  Ilenr}''  himself  against  the  Bishop 
of  Hildesheim  for  having  preached  the  crusade ;  it  was  treated  as 
an  offence,  and  though  he  was  pardoned  by  unanimous  request, 
the  recalcitrance  against  the  papal  tendencies  was  none  the  less 
significant.  Then  the  memory  of  the  martyred  Conrad  was  ar- 
raigned, and  this,  as  a  matter  of  faith,  was  discussed  by  the  eccle- 
siastics separately.  There  were  twenty-five  archbishops  and  bish- 
ops present,  who  were  almost  unanimous  in  condemning  hun,  while 
the  Bishop  of  Hildesheim  and  a  Dominican  named  Otto  strenu- 
ously defended  him.  One  of  the  prelates  exclaimed  that  Master 
Conrad  ought  to  be  dug  up  and  burned  as  a  heretic ;  but  no  con- 
clusion seems  to  have  been  reached,  for  the  proceedings  were  in- 
terrupted by  the  introduction  of  a  procession  of  those  whom  he 
had  shaved  in  penance  the  preceding  year,  who  marclicd  in  with  a 
cross  at  their  head,  and  complained  of  his  cruelty  with  dolorous 


*  Epistt.  Select.  Saecul.  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  533,  537,  558,  5G0-1.  — Clirou.  Erfor- 
diens.  ann.  1334  (Schanuat  Vindem.  Literar.  I.  94). 


344  GERMANY. 

cries,  when  a  tumult  arose  from  which  his  defenders  were  glad  to 
escape  with  their  lives.  On  the  following  Monday  the  solemn 
purgation  of  Count  Sayn  took  place  in  the  field  of  judgment  be- 
3'"ond  the  walls.  Eight  bishops,  twelve  Cistercian  and  three  Bene- 
dictine abbots,  twelve  Franciscan  and  thi*ee  Dominican  friars,  who, 
with  many  other  clerks  and  numerous  nobles,  took  part  in  his 
oath  of  denial,  show  how  emphatically  the  German  hierarchy  de- 
sired to  disclaim  all  sympathy  with  Conrad's  acts.  Count  Solms, 
whom  Conrad  had  forced  to  confession,  went  through  the  same 
ceremony,  declaring  with  tears  in  his  eyes  that  the  fear  of  death 
alone  had  compelled  him  to  admit  himself  guilty.  The  diet  then 
proceeded  to  legislate  for  the  future,  and  its  slender  enunciation 
on  the  subject  of  heresy  cao  have  carried  little  comfort  to  the 
wrathful  Gregory.  It  simply  commanded  that  all  who  exercised 
judicial  functions  should  use  every  effort  to  purge  the  land  of  her- 
esy, but  at  the  same  time  it  cautioned  them  to  prefer  justice  to 
unjust  persecution.* 

Two  months  later,  April  2,  1234,  a  council  was  held  at  Mainz 
for  final  action.  Count  Sayn  and  others  who  had  been  accused 
were  subjected  to  a  form  of  examination,  were  declared  innocent, 
and  were  restored  to  reputation  and  to  their  possessions.  Conrad's 
unlucky  witnesses  who  had  been  forced  to  commit  perjury  were 
ordered  to  undergo  a  penance  of  seven  years ;  those  who  had  ac- 
cused the  innocent  were  maliciously  sent  to  the  pope  for  the  impo- 
sition of  penance,  and  he  was,  in  the  same  spirit,  asked  what  should 
be  done  about  those  whom  Conrad  had  unjustly  burned.  As  for 
the  murderers,  they  were  simply  excommunicated.f 

All  this  was  a  direct  challenge  to  the  Holy  See,  but  Gregory 
prudently  delayed  action.  He  was  involved  in  troubles  with  the 
Eomans  which  rendered  inadvisable  any  trial  of  strength  with  the 
united  Teutonic  Church.  He  sent  his  penitentiary,  Bernard,  who 
made  an  investigation  on  the  spot,  and,  in  conjunction  with  Arch- 
bishop Sigfried,  furnished  him  with  a  report  to  which  we  are  in- 
debted for  most  of  our  knowledge  of  the  affair.    On  receiving  this, 


*  Epistt.  Select.  Sacul.  XIII.  T.  I.  No.  503,572.— Chron.  Erfordiens.  (Schan- 
nat  Vindem.  Literar.  I.  94).— Alberic.  Triuiu  Font.  ann.  1234.— Gest.  Treviror. 
c.  175. 

t  Alberic.  Trium  Font.  ann.  1233. 


SETTLEMENT    OF   THE    TROUBLES.  345 

Gregory  expressed  his  regret  that  he  had  intrusted  to  Master  Con- 
rad the  enormous  powers  which  had  led  to  a  result  so  lamentable. 
Still  his  decision  was  delayed.  Towards  the  end  of  the  year  1234 
he  appealed  earnestly  to  the  German  bishops  for  aid  in  his  quarrel 
with  the  Romans,  which  contihuod  until  he  made  peace  with  them 
in  April,  1235.  His  hands  were  now  free,  but  it  was  not  until  July 
that  he  trusted  himself  to  express  his  indignation.  Then  he  scold- 
ed most  vehemently  the  Council  of  Mainz  for  daring,  in  the  absence 
of  any  defenders  of  the  faith,  to  absolve  those  whom  Conrad  had 
prosecuted,  and  for  sending  to  him  for  absolution  the  murderers, 
without  having  first  exacted  of  them  full  satisfaction  for  their  de- 
testable crime.  His  sentence  upon  them  is  that  they  shall  join  the 
crusade  to  Palestine  when  it  sets  sail  the  following  March,  giving 
good  security  to  insure  their  obedience,  and  meanwhile  they  shall 
visit  all  the  greater  churches  in  the  region  of  the  crime,  bare- 
footed and  naked,  except  draw^ers,  with  a  halter  around  the  neck, 
and  a  rod  in  the  hand,  and,  when  the  affluence  of  people  is  the 
greatest,  cause  themselves  to  be  scourged  by  all  the  priests,  while 
they  chant  the  penitential  psalms,  and  publicly  confess  their  guilt. 
After  this  they  may  be  absolved.* 

It  is  satisfactory  to  know  that  the  immediate  author  of  the  trou- 
bles met  with  the  fate  which  he  deserved.  Conrad  Tors,  on  his 
return  from  Rome,  endeavored  to  resume  his  interrupted  labors, 
but  the  temper  of  the  people  had  changed,  and  the  victims  were 
no  longer  unresisting.  At  Strassburg  he  summoned  the  Junker 
Heinz  von  Miillenheim,  who  unceremoniously  settled  the  accusa- 
tion by  slaying  him.  His  assistant,  the  one-eyed  John,  met  an 
even  more  ignominious  fate,  for  he  was  recognized  at  Freiburg 
and  hanged.f  

•  Alberic.  Trium  Font.  ann.  1233.— Epistt.  Select.  Sfecul.  XIH.  T.  L  No.  607, 
611-12,  636,  647. 

There  would  appear  not  to  be  ground  for  the  story  told  l)y  Philippe  jlousket 
(Chronique  RiniGe,  28831-42.— Bouquet,  XXII.  55)  that  Gregory  sent  a  cardinal 
Otho  to  Germany,  who  proceeded  to  degrade  sundry  ecclesiastics  concerned  in 
the  matter,  and  raised  such  a  tempest  that  he  was  obliged  to  escape  by  night  to 
Tournay,  and  thence  return  to  Rome.  Even  if  baseless,  however,  the  very  circu- 
lation of  such  a  report  shows  the  antagonism  e.xcited  between  Home  and  Ger- 
many. 

t  Kaltner,p.  173.— Annal  Wormatiens.  (Hist.  Diplom.  Frid.  II.  T.  IV.  p.  617) 


346  GERMANY. 

Thns  ended  this  terrible  drama,  which  left  an  impression  of 
horror  on  the  souls  of  the  German  ])eople  not  ejisily  effaced.  The 
number  of  Conrad's  victims  can  only  be  guessed  at.  Some  chron- 
iclers vaguely  speak  of  them  as  innumerable,  and  one  asserts  that 
a  thousand  unfortunates  were  burned.  Although  this  is  probably 
an  exaggeration,  for  the  period  of  Conrad's  insane  activity  cannot 
have  exceeded  a  twelvemonth,  yet  the  number  must  have  been 
considerable  to  produce  so  profound  an  impression  on  a  generation 
which  was  by  no  means  susceptible.* 

One  good  result  there  undoubtedly  was.  The  universal  detes- 
tation excited  by  Conrad's  crazy  fanaticism  rendered  it  compara- 
tively easy  for  the  bishops  to  maintain  the  jurisdiction  which 
they  had  assumed,  and  to  keep  the  Inquisition  confined  within 
narrow  limits.  For  a  time  this  was  doubtless  facilitated  by  the 
open  quarrels  between  Frederic  11.  and  the  papacy,  but  even  after 
his  death,  during  the  Great  Interregnum  and  the  reigns  of  em- 
perors who  were  more  or  less  dependent  upon  the  Holy  See,  more 
than  a  century  was  to  pass  away  before  the  popes,  who  were  so 
zealously  organizing  and  strengthening  it  elsewhere,  made  a  seri- 
ous effort  to  establish  the  Inquisition  in  Germany.  We  hear  of  no 
endeavors  on  their  part,  we  meet  with  no  appointments  or  com- 
missions of  German  inquisitors.  It  seems  to  have  been  tacitly 
understood  that  the  institution  was  unfitted  for  German  soil  until 
a  period  when  it  had  fairly  entered  into  decadence  in  the  lands 
where  its  growth  was  the  rankest. 

The  excitement  of  Conrad  of  i\Iarburg's  exploits  was  naturally 
succeeded  by  a  reaction.  In  1233  the  murder  of  Bishop  Berthold 
of  Coire,  attributed  to  heretics,  shows  how  far  persecution  spread, 
accompanied  by  a  dangerous  tendency  to  resistance.  Throughout 
1234  both  Dominicans  and  Franciscans  are  reported  as  busy,  with 
the  result  of  numerous  burnings ;  but  the  lesson  taught  by  the 
attitude  of  the  German  prelates  was  not  lost,  and  in  1235  the 
magistrates  of  Strassburg  enjoined  on  them  to  seek  conversions  by 
preaching,  and  not  to  burn  people  without  at  least  giving  them  a 
hearing.     The  languor  and  reaction  continued.     We  have  seen 


•  Trithem.  Chron.  Hirsaug.  ann.  1233. — Erphurdian.  Variloq.  ann.  1232  (Men- 
ken. II.  484). — Chron.  Sanpetrin.  Erfurt.  (lb.  III.  254). — Anon.  Saxon.  Hist.  Impp. 
(lb.  III.  125).— Chron.  Erfordiens.  ann.  1232  (Schannat  Vindem.  Literar.  I.  92). 


WALDENSIANISM.  347 

from  the  complaints  of  the  Count  of  Salins,  in  1248,  and  the  fruit- 
less efforts  of  Innocent  IV.  to  establish  the  Inquisition  in  Besan- 
gon,  that  the  western  borders  of  Germany  were  full  of  ^Valdenses 
who  had  httle  to  dread.  At  the  same  period  there  Avas  a  demon- 
stration in  the  neighborhood  of  Halle  which  may  be  reasonably 
regarded  as  Waldensian,  The  papacy  had  succeeded  in  raising  a 
rival  to  Frederic  in  the  person  of  WiUiam  of  Holland,  and  a  cru- 
sade was  on  foot  in  his  favor  against  Conrad,  Frederic's  son.  The 
imperialists  would  naturally  regard  with  favor  the  Waldensian 
doctrines  denying  the  power  of  the  keys  and  the  obedience  due  to 
interdicts,  and  they  might  not  object  further  to  the  tenet  that  sin- 
ful priests  cannot  administer  the  sacraments.  Such  were  the  dog- 
mas attributed  to  the  heretics  of  Halle,  who  came  boldl}'"  forwartl 
in  1248,  were  eagerly  listened  to  by  the  nobles,  and  were  favored 
by  King  Conrad,  but  they  speechly  disappeared  from  sight  in  the 
changeful  circumstances  of  that  tumultuous  time.* 

We  have  much  more  distinct  indications  of  the  existence  both 
of  heresy  and  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  writings  of  David  of  Augs- 
burg, and  of  the  author  now  generally  known  as  the  Passauer 
Anonymus.  The  date  of  the  latter  is  not  absolutely  certain,  but 
it  cannot  vary  much  from  12G0.  His  field  of  action  was  the  ex- 
tensive diocese  of  Passau,  stretching  from  the  Iser  to  the  Leitha, 
and  from  Bohemia  to  Styria,  embracing  eastern  Bavaria  and 
northern  Austria.  His  instructions  seem  to  take  for  granted  the 
existence  of  an  organized  Inquisition  with  its  fully  developed  code 
of  procedure,  but  his  description  of  the  prevalence  of  Waldensian- 
ism  would  indicate  that  it  was  almost  inoperative.  He  tells  us 
that  he  had  often  been  concerned  in  the  inquisition  and  examina- 
tion of  the  "  schools,"  or  communities,  of  Waldenses,  of  which  there 
were  forty-one  in  the  diocese,  ten  of  them  being  in  the  single  town 
of  Clamme,  where  the  heretics  slew  the  parish  priest  without  any 
one  being  punished  for  it.  There  were  also  forty -one  Wakk^nsian 
churches,  organized  under  a  bishop  residing  in  EiU[)enbach,  and  there 
was  a  school  for  lepers  at  Newenhoffen.  All  this  shows  a  prosper- 
ous growth  of  heresy  little  disturbed  by  persecution.  It  is  observ- 
able that  the  places  enumerated  as  the  seats  of  these  chm'ches  are 


*  Kaltner,  pp.  171,  173.— Aninil.  Dominican.  Colniar.  ami.  1233  (Uretisii  Germ. 
Hist.  II.  6).— Potthiist  No.  13000,  15995.— Albert.  Stadens.  Chron.  aim.  1248. 


348  GERMANY. 

mostly  insignificant  villages,  the  larger  towns  appear  to  be  avoid- 
ed, and  the  heretics  belong  to  the  humbler  classes — mostly  peasants 
and  mechanics.  Their  wonderful  familiarity  with  Scripture  and 
their  self -devoted  earnestness  in  making  converts  have  already  been 
alluded  to.  From  the  writer's  long  description  of  the  tenets  of  the 
Ordibarii  and  Ortlibenses  it  is  evident  that  they  formed  a  fair  pro- 
portion of  the  heretics  with  whom  the  inquisitor  had  to  deal,  and 
their  belief  that  the  Day  of  Judgment  would  come  when  the  pope 
and  the  emperor  should  be  converted  to  their  sect,  indicates  the 
hopefulness  of  a  faith  that  is  growing  and  spreading.  Soon  after- 
wards we  hear  of  Waldenses  captured  in  the  diocese  of  Eatisbon, 
and  their  continued  activity,  in  spite  of  persecution,  through  all  the 
south  German  regions.* 

There  was  little  on  the  part  of  the  Inquisition  or  the  bishops 
to  prevent  the  gro\vth  and  spread  of  heresy.  During  the  Inter- 
regnum, in  12(31,  a  council  of  Mainz  seems  suddenly  to  have  awak- 
ened to  a  sense  of  neglected  duty  in  the  premises ;  it  vigorously 
anathematized  all  heretics  after  the  fasliion  customary  in  the  papal 
bulls,  and  it  strictly  commanded  the  bishops  of  the  province  to 
labor  zealously  for  the  extermination  of  heresy  in  their  respective 
dioceses,  enforcing,  with  regard  to  the  persons  and  property  of 
heretics,  the  papal  constitutions  and  the  statutes  of  a  former  pro- 
vincial council.  There  is  here  no  sign  of  the  existence  of  a  papal 
Inquisition,  and  the  episcopal  activity  which  was  threatened  ap- 
pears to  have  lain  dormant,  though  the  action  of  the  council 
would  seem  to  show  that  heretics  were  numerous  enough  to  attract 
attention.  It  is  true  that,  in  the  chancery  of  Rodolph  of  Ilaps- 
burg,  whose  reign  extended  from  1273  to  1292,  there  was  a  for- 
mula for  acknowledging  and  confirming  the  papal  commissions 
presented  by  inquisitors,  showing  that  tliis  must,  at  least  occasion- 
ally, have  been  done.  The  emperor  calls  God  to  witness  that  his 
chief  object  in  accepting  the  crown  was  to  be  able  to  defend  the 
faith ;  he  alludes  to  the  exercise  of  inquisitorial  jurisdiction  over 
the  descendants  of  heretics  as  well  as  over  heretics  themselves, 
but  he  carefully  inserts  a  saving  clause  to  the  effect  that  the  ac- 


••■  Anon.  Passaviens.  contra  Waldeus.  c.  3,  6,  9,  10  (Mag.  Bib.  Pat.  XIII.  299, 
301-2,  308-9).— W.  Preger,  Beitrage,  pp.  9,  49.— Ejusd.  Der  Tractat  des  David 
von  Augsburg. 


THE    MEDIiEVAL    CODES.  349 

cused  must  be  legitimately  proved  guilty  and  be  properly  con- 
demned. If,  however,  inquisitors  presented  themselves  to  obtain 
this  recognition  of  their  powers,  they  have  left  no  visible  traces  of 
the  results  of  their  activity.* 

In  the  codes  which  embody  the  customs  current  in  mediaeval 
Germany  there  is  no  recognition  whatever  of  the  existence  of  such 
a  body  as  the  Inquisition.  The  Sachsenspiegel,  whicli  contains 
the  municipal  law  of  tlie  northern  provinces,  provides,  it  is  true, 
the  punishment  of  burning  for  those  convicted  of  unbelief,  poison- 
ing, or  sorcery,  but  says  nothing  as  to  the  manner  of  trial ;  and 
the  rule  enunciated  that  no  houses  shall  be  destroyed  except  when 
rape  is  committed  in  them,  or  a  violated  woman  is  carried  into 
them,  shows  that  the  demolition  of  the  residences  and  refuges  of 
heretics  was  unknown  within  its  jurisdiction.  The  code  through- 
out is  singularly  disregardful  of  ecclesiastical  pretensions,  and 
richly  earned  the  papal  anathema  bestowed  upon  it  when  its  prac- 
tical Avorking  happened  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  Koman 
curia,  t 

The  Schwabenspiegel,  or  code  in  force  in  southern  Germany,  is 
much  more  complaisant  to  the  Church,  but  it  knows  of  no  juris- 
diction over  heretics  save  that  of  the  bishops.  It  admits  that  an 
emperor  rendering  himself  suspect  in  the  faith  can  be  put  under 
ban  b}^  the  pope.  It  provides  death  by  fire  for  the  heretic.  It  di- 
rects that  wiien  heretics  are  known  to  exist,  the  ecclesiastical 
courts  shaU  inquire  about  them  and  proceed  against  them.  If 
convicted,  the  secular  judge  shall  seize  them  and  doom  them  ac- 
cording to  law.  If  he  neglects  or  refuses  he  is  to  be  excommuni- 
cated by  the  bishop,  and  his  suzerain  shall  inflict  on  him  the  pen- 
alty of  heresy.  If  a  secular  prince  does  not  punish  heresy  he  is  to 
be  excommunicated  by  the  episcopal  court ;  if  he  remains  under 
the  censure  for  a  year  the  bishop  is  to  report  liim  to  the  pope, 
who  shall  deprive  him  of  his  rank  and  honors,  and  the  emperor  is 


*  Concil.  Mogunt.  ann.  1261  c.  1  (Hartzbeim  III.  59G).— Cod.  Epist.  Rodolph. 
I.  pp.  148-9,  Lipsia",  180G. 

f  Saclisenspicgel,  11.  xiii.,  in.  i. — Raynald.  ann.  1374,  No.  12. 

The  papal  condemnation  was  probably  elicited  by  a  passage  in  the  Sachsen- 
spiegel (11.  3)  declaring  that  the  pope  could  not  issue  decretals  in  ))rcjudice  of 
the  local  laws  and  constitutions.  The  Saxon  legists  were  in  no  wise  disconcerted, 
and  proceeded  to  reassert  and  prove  their  position  (Riclistii-li  I/uulrcclit,  11.  24), 


350  GERMANY. 

bound  to  execute  his  sentence  by  stripping  him  of  all  his  posses- 
sions, feudal  and  allodial.  All  this  shows  ample  readiness  to  ac- 
cept the  received  ecclesiastical  law  of  the  period  as  to  heresy,  but 
utter  ignorance  of  the  inquisitorial  process  is  revealed  in  the  pro- 
vision which  inflicts  the  talio  on  whoever  accuses  another  of  cer- 
tain crimes,  including  heresy,  without  being  able  to  convict  him. 
When  the  accuser  had  to  accept  the  chances  of  the  stake,  prose- 
cutions w^ere  not  apt  to  be  common.* 

Towards  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century  and  the  opening 
of  the  fourteenth,  attention  was  aroused  to  the  dangerous  tenden- 
cies of  certain  forms  of  belief  lurking  among  some  semi-religious 
bodies  which  had  long  enjoyed  the  favor  of  the  pious  and  the 
protection  of  the  Church,  known  by  the  names  of  Beguines,  Beg- 
hards,  Lollards,  Cellites,  etc.  Infinite  learned  trifling  has  been 
wasted  in  imagining  derivations  for  these  appellations.  The  Be- 
guines and  Beghards  themselves  assert  their  descent  from  St. 
Begga,  mother  of  Pepin  of  Landen,  who  built  a  Benedictine  nun- 
nery at  Andennes.  Another  root  has  been  sought  in  Lambert-le- 
Begue,  or  the  Stammerer,  a  priest  of  St.  Christopher  at  Liege, 
about  1180,  who  became  prominent  by  denouncing  the  simony  of 
the  canons  of  the  cathedral.  Prebends  w^ere  openly  placed  for  sale 
in  the  hands  of  a  butcher  named  Udelin,  w^ho  acted  as  broker,  and 
when  Lambert  aroused  the  people  to  a  sense  of  this  wdckedness, 
the  bishop  arrested  him  as  a  disturber,  and  the  clergy  assailed 
him  and  tore  him  with  their  nails.  His  connection  with  the  Be- 
guines arose  from  his  affording  them  shelter  in  his  house  at  St. 
Christopher,  which  has  remained  until  modern  times  the  largest 
and  richest  Beguinage  of  the  province.  The  soundest  opinion,  how- 
ever, w^ould  seem  to  be  that  both  Beghard  and  Beguine  are  de- 
rived from  the  old  German  word  heggan,  signifying  either  to  beg 
or  to  pray,  while  Lollard  is  traced  to  luUen,  to  mutter  prayers. f 

*  Schwabenspiegel,  Ed.  Senck.  c.  29,  116  §  13,  351 ;  Ed.  Schilt.  c.  Ill,  1C6, 
308. 

t  Hist.  Monast.  S.  Laurent.  Leodiens.  Lib.  v.  c.  54.  —  Mag.  Chron.  Belgic.  p. 
193.— Mosheim  de  Beghardis,  Lipsiae,  1790,  pp.  98-100,  114. 

In  popular  use  the  words  Lollard  and  Beghard  were  virtually  convertil)le,  and 
yet  there  is  a  difference  between  them.  The  associations  of  Lollards  were  found- 
ed during  a  pestilence  at  Antwerp  about  the  year  1300.      They  were  laymen 


BEGHARDS    AND    BEGUINES.  351 

The  motives  were  numerous  which  impelled  multitudes  to  de- 
sire a  religious  life  without  assuming  the  awful  and  irrevocable 
vows  that  cut  them  off  absolutely  from  the  world.  This  was  es- 
pecially the  case  among  women  who  chanced  to  be  deprived  of 
their  natural  guardians  and  who  sought  in  those  wild  ages  the 
protection  which  the  Church  alone  could  confer.  Thus  associa- 
tions were  formed,  originally  of  women,  who  simply  promised 
chastity  and  obedience  while  they  lived  in  common,  who  assisted 
either  by  labor  or  beggary  in  providing  for  the  common  support, 
who  were  assiduous  in  their  religious  observances,  and  who  per- 
formed such  duties  of  hospitality  and  of  caring  for  the  sick  as 
their  opportunities  would  allow.  The  Netherlands  were  the  na- 
tive seat  of  this  fruitful  idea,  and  as  early  as  1065  there  is  a  char- 
ter extant  given  by  a  convent  of  Beguines  at  Vilvorde,  near  Brus- 
sels. The  drain  of  the  crusades  on  the  male  population  increased 
enormously  the  number  of  women  deprived  of  support  and  pro- 
tection, and  gave  a  corresponding  stimulus  to  the  growth  of  the 
Beguinages.  In  time  men  came  to  form  similar  associations,  and 
soon  Germany,  France,  and  Italy  became  filled  with  them.  To 
this  contributed  in  no  smaU  degree  the  insane  laudation  of  pov- 
erty by  the  Franciscans  and  the  merit  conceded  to  a  life  of  beg- 
gary by  the  immense  popularity  of  the  Mendicant  Orders.     To 


who  devoted  themselves  to  the  care  of  the  sick  and  insane,  and  specially  to  tlic 
burial  of  the  dead,  suppl3'ing  the  funds  partly  by  labor  and  partly  l\y  begging.  Tiic 
name  was  derived  from  the  low  and  soft  singing  of  the  funeral  chants,  but  they 
called  themselves  Alexians,  from  their  patron,  St.  Alexis,  and  Cellites  from  dwell- 
ing in  cells.  They  were  also  known  as  Matemans,  and  in  Germany  as  Nollbru- 
der.  The  word  Lollard  gradually  grew  to  have  the  significance  of  external 
sanctity  covering  secret  license,  and  was  promiscuously  applied  to  all  the  mendi- 
cants outside  of  the  regular  Orders.  The  Cellite  associations  spread  from  the 
Netherlands  through  the  Rhinelands  and  all  over  Germany.  Constantly  the 
subject  of  persecution,  along  with  the  Bcghards,  their  value  was  recognized  by 
the  magistrates  of  the  cities  who  endeavored  to  protect  them.  In  1472  Charles 
the  Bold  obtained  from  Sixtus  IV.  a  bull  receiving  them  into  tlie  recognized  re- 
ligious orders,  thus  withdrawing  them  from  episcopal  jurisdiction  ;  and  in  1506 
Julius  II.  granted  them  special  privileges.  The  associations  of  Alexian  Brotliers 
still  exist,  devoted  to  the  care  of  the  sick,  and  liave  flourishing  hospitals  in  the 
United  States,  as  well  as  in  Europe.  (i\Iosheim  de  Beghardis  pp.  461,409. — 
Martini  Append,  ad  IMosheim  pp.  585-88.— Ilartzhcim  IV.  625-6.  — Addis  & 
Arnold's  Catholic  Dictionary,  New  York,  1884,  p.  886.) 


352  GERMANY. 

earn  a  livelihood  by  beggary  was  in  itself  an  approach  to  sanc- 
tity, as  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  Conrad  of  Marburg  and  St. 
Elizabeth.  About  1230  a  certain  Willem  Cornelis,  of  Antwerp, 
gave  up  a  prebend  and  devoted  himself  to  teaching  the  pre-em- 
inent virtue  of  poverty.  He  carried  the  received  doctrine  on  the 
subject,  however,  to  lengths  too  extravagant,  for  he  held  that  pov- 
erty consumed  all  sin,  as  fire  ate  up  rust,  and  that  a  harlot,  if 
poor,  was  better  than  a  just  and  continent  rich  man ;  and  though 
he  was  honorably  buried  in  the  church  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  yet 
when,  four  years  later,  these  opinions  came  to  be  known,  Bishop 
i^icholas  of  Cambrai  caused  his  bones  to  be  exhumed  and 
burned.* 

Extremes  such  as  this  show  us  the  prevailing  tendencies  of  the 
age,  and  it  is  necessary  to  appreciate  these  tendencies  in  order  to 
understand  how  Europe  came  to  tolerate  the  hordes  of  holy  beg- 
gars, either  wandering  or  living  in  communities,  who  covered  the 
face  of  the  land,  and  drained  the  people  of  their  substance.  Of 
the  two  classes  the  wanderers  were  the  most  dangerous,  but  in 
both  there  was  the  germ  of  future  trouble,  although  the  settled 
Beguines  approached  very  nearly  the  Tertiaries  of  the  Mendi- 
cants. Indeed,  they  frequently  placed  themselves  under  the  di- 
rection of  Dominicans  or  Franciscans,  and  eventually  those  who 
survived  the  vicissitudes  of  persecution  mostly  merged  into  the 
Tertiaries  of  either  one  Order  or  the  other. 

The  rapid  growth  of  these  communities  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury is  easily  explicable.  Not  only  did  they  respond  to  the  spir- 
itual demands  of  the  age,  but  they  enjoyed  the  most  exalted  pa- 
tronage. In  Flanders  the  counts  seem  never  wearied  of  assisting 
them.  Gregory  IX.  and  his  successors  took  their  institution 
under  the  special  protection  of  the  Holy  See.  St.  Louis  provided 
them  with  houses  in  Paris  and  other  cities,  and  left  them  abundant 
legacies  in  his  will,  in  which  he  was  imitated  by  his  sons.  Under 
such  encouragement  their  numbers  increased  enormously.  In  Paris 
there  were  multitudes.  About  1240  they  were  estimated  at  two 
thousand  in  Cologne  and  its  vicinity,  and  there  were  as  many  in  the 
single  Beguinage  of  MveUe,  in  Brabant.     Philippe  de  Montmirail, 


*  Miraei  0pp.  Diplom.  II.  948  (Ed.  Foppens). — D'Argentre,  Coll.  Judic.  I.  I. 
138. 


BEGIIARDS    AND    BEGUINES.  353 

a  pious  knight  who  devoted  himself  to  good  works,  is  said  to  have 
been  instrumental  in  providing  for  five  thousand  Beguines  through- 
out Europe.  The  great  Beguinage  of  Ghent,  founded  in  1234,  by 
the  Countesses  of  Flanders,  Jeanne  and  Marguerite,  is  descri})ed 
in  the  seventeenth  century  as  resembling  a  small  town,  surrounded 
with  wall  and  fosse,  containing  open  squares,  conventual  houses, 
dwellings,  infirmary,  church,  and  cemetery,  inhabited  by  eight 
hundred  or  a  thousand  women,  the  younger  living  in  the  con- 
vents, the  older  in  separate  houses.  They  were  tied  by  no  perma- 
nent vows  and  were  free  to  depart  and  marry  at  any  time,  but  so 
long  as  they  were  inmates  they  were  bound  to  obey  the  Grand 
Mistress.  The  guardianship  of  the  establishment  was  hereditary 
in  the  House  of  Flanders,  and  it  was  under  the  supervision  of  the 
Dominican  prior  of  Ghent.  How  large  was  the  space  that  Be- 
guinism  occupied  in  public  estimation  in  the  thirteenth  century  is 
shown  by  Philippe  Mousket,  who  calls  Conrad  of  Marburg  a  Be- 
guine,  "  tms  hegins  mestre  sermonniereP  * 

Those  who  thus  lived  in  communities  could  be  subjected  to 
wholesome  supervision  and  established  rules,  but  it  was  other- 
wise with  those  who  maintained  an  independent  existence,  either 
in  one  spot  or  wandering  from  place  to  place,  sometimes  support- 
ing themselves  by  labor,  but  more  frequently  by  beggary.  Their 
customary  persistent  cry  through  the  streets — "  Brod  durch  Gott " 
■ — became  a  shibboleth  unpleasantly  familiar  to  the  inhabitants  of 
the  German  cities,  which  the  Church  repeatedly  and  inelfectually 
endeavored  to  suppress.  A  circumstance  occurring  about  12'40  il- 
lustrates their  reputation  for  superior  sanctity  and  the  advantages 
derivable  from  it.  A  certain  Sibylla  of  Marsal  near  Metz,  we  are 
told,  seeing  how  many  women  under  the  name  of  Beguines  flour- 
ished in  the  appearance  of  religion,  and  under  the  guidance  of 
the  Dominicans,  thought  fit  to  imitate  them.  Assiduous  attend- 
ance at  matins  and  mass  gained  her  the  repute  of  i)eculiar  holi- 
ness. Then  she  pretended  to  fast  and  live  on  celestial  food,  she 
had  ecstasies  and  visions,  and  deceived  the  whole  region,  not  ex- 


*  Miraei  0pp.  Diplom.  I.  429;  II.  998, 1013;  III.  398,  523.— I^Ioshciiu  de  Bcg- 
hardis  pp.  43,  105,  127, 131-2.— Wadding,  ann.  1485,  No.  27.— B.  de  Jonglic  Bel- 
gium Dominican,  ap.  Ripoll  II.  170.— Cliron.  Rimco  dc  Pii.  Mousket,  28817  (Bou- 
quet. XXII.  54). 
II.— 23 


354  GERMANY. 

cepting  the  Bishop  of  Metz  himself.  The  Beguines  who  had 
hailed  her  as  a  saintly  sister  were  excessively  mortified  when  an 
accident  revealed  the  imposture ;  the  people  were  so  enraged  that 
some  wanted  to  burn  her  and  others  to  bury  her  ahve,  but  the 
bishop  shut  her  up  in  a  convent,  in  pace,  where,  naturally  enough, 
she  soon  died.* 

The  Church  was  not  long  in  recognizing  the  danger  inherent  in 
these  practices  when  withdrawn  from  close  supervision.  On  the 
one  hand  there  was  simulated  piety,  like  that  of  Sibylla  of  Mar- 
sal,  on  the  other  the  far  more  serious  opportunity  of  indulgence 
in  unlawful  speculation.  In  1250  and  the  following  years  the 
Beguines  of  Cologne  repeatedly  sought  the  protection  of  papal 
legates  against  the  oppression  of  both  clergy  and  laity.  Already, 
in  1259,  a  council  of  Mainz  strongly  reproved  the  pestiferous  sect 
of  Beghards  and  Beguttge  (Beguines),  who  wandered  through  the 
streets  crying  "  Broth  durch  Gott^''  preaching  in  caverns  and 
other  secret  places,  and  given  to  various  practices  disapproved  by 
the  Church.  All  priests  were  ordered  to  warn  them  to  abandon 
these  customs,  and  to  expel  from  their  parishes  those  who  were 
obstinate.  In  12G7  the  Council  of  Treves  forbade  their  preaching 
in  the  streets  on  account  of  the  heresies  which  they  disseminated. 
In  128 7  a  council  of  Liege  deprived  all  who  did  not  live  in  the 
Beguinages  of  the  right  to  wear  the  peculiar  habit  and  enjoy  the 
privileges  of  Beguines.  In  Suabia,  about  the  same  period,  some 
members  of  communities  of  Beghards  and  Beguines  sought  to 
persuade  the  rest  that  they  could  better  serve  God  "  in  freedom 
of  spirit,"  when  the  bishops  proceeded  to  abolish  all  such  associa- 
tions, and  some  of  them  asked  to  adopt  the  rule  of  St.  Augustin.f 

All  this  points  to  the  adoption,  by  the  followers  of  Ortlieb, 
who  called  themselves  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit,  of  the  habit 
and  appellation  of  the  Beghards  and  Beguines,  and  the  gradual 
invasion  among  the  latter  of  the  doctrines  derived  from  Amaury. 


*  Chron.  Senonens.  Lib.  iv.  c.  18  (D'Achei-y  II.  684-6). 

The  cry  of  "  Brod  durch  Oott "  was  already  of  old  usage.  It  was  the  first 
German  speech  acquired  by  the  Franciscans  sent  to  Germany,  in  1221,  by  St. 
Francis. — Frat.  Jordani  Chron.  c.  27  (Analecta  Frauciscana  I.  10). 

t  Haupt,  Zeitschrift  fiir  Kirchengeschichte,  1885,  p.  544. — Hartzheim  III.  717 ; 
IV.  577.— Concil.  Trevirens.  ann.  1257  c.  66  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VU.  114-5).— 
Mosheim  p.  199. 


BRETHREN    OF    THE    FREE    SPIRIT.  355 

Comparatively  few  of  the  Lollards,  Beghards,  or  Beguines  were 
contaminated  with  these  heresies,  but  they  all  had  to  share  the  re- 
sponsibility, and  the  communities  of  both  sexes,  who  led  the  most 
regular  lives  and  were  inspired  with  the  purest  orthodoxy,  were 
exposed  to  unnumbered  tribulations  for  lack  of  a  distinctive  ap- 
pellation. When  heretics  regarded  as  peculiarly  obnoxious  were 
anathematized  as  Beghards  and  Beguines,  it  was  impossible  for 
those  who  bore  the  name,  without  sharing  the  errors,  to  escape 
the  common  responsibility.  It  became  even  worse  when  John 
XXII.  plunged  into  a  quarrel  with  the  Spiritual  Franciscans, 
drove  them  into  open  rebellion,  and  persecuted  the  new  heresy 
which  he  had  thus  created  with  all  the  unsparing  wrath  of  his 
vindictive  nature.  In  France  the  Tertiary  Franciscans  were  pop- 
ularly known  as  Beguines,  and  this  became  the  appellation  cus- 
tomarily bestowed  on  tliese  Spiritual  heretics,  and  adopted  by  the 
Avignonese  popes  to  designate  them.  Not  only  has  this  led  to 
much  confusion  on  the  part  of  heresiologists,  but  its  effect,  for  a 
time,  on  the  fortunes  of  the  virtuous  and  orthodox  Beguines  of 
both  sexes  was  most  disastrous.  The  heretic  Beghards,  it  is  true, 
adopted  for  themselves  the  title  of  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit; 
the  rebellious  Franciscans  insisted  that  they  were  the  only  legiti- 
mate representatives  of  the  Order,  and,  at  most,  assumed  the  term 
of  Spirituals,  in  order  to  distinguish  themselves  from  their  carnal- 
minded  conventual  brethren ;  but  the  authorities  were  long  in 
admitting  these  distinctions,  and,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Church  at 
large,  the  condemnation  of  Beghards  and  Beguines  covered  all 
aUke. 

We  have  here  to  do  only  with  the  Brethren  of  tlie  Free  Spirit, 
whose  doctrines,  as  we  have  seen,  were  derived  from  the  specula- 
tions of  the  Amaurians  carried  to  Germany  by  Ortlieb  of  Strass- 
burg.  Descriptions  of  their  errors  have  reached  us  from  so  many 
sources,  covering  so  long  a  period,  with  so  general  a  consensus  in 
fundamentals,  that  there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  the  main  princi- 
ples of  their  faith.  In  a  sect  extending  over  so  wide  a  reach  of 
territory,  and  stubbornly  maintaining  itself  through  so  many 
generations,  there  must  necessarily  have  existed  subdivisions,  as 
one  heresiarch  or  another  pushed  his  speculations  in  some  direc 
tion  further  than  his  fellows,  and  founded  a  special  school  whose 
aberrations  there  was  no  central  authority  to  control.     Many  of 


356  GERMANY. 

the  peculiarly  repulsive  extravagances  attributed  to  them,  how- 
ever, may  safely  be  ascribed  to  keen-witted  schoolmen  engaged  in 
trying  individual  heretics,  and  forcing  them  to  admit  consequences 
logically  but  unexpectedly  deduced  from  their  admitted  premises. 
There  was  no  little  intellectual  activity  in  the  sect,  and  their  tracts 
and  books  of  devotion,  written  in  the  vernacular,  were  widely  dis- 
tributed, and  largely  relied  upon  as  means  of  missionary  effort. 
These,  of  course,  have  wholly  disappeared,  and  we  are  left  to 
gather  their  doctrines  from  the  condemnations  passed  upon  them. 

The  foundation  of  their  creed  was  pantheism.  God  is  every- 
thing that  is.  There  is  as  much  of  the  divinity  in  a  louse  as  in  a 
man  or  in  any  other  creature.  All  emanates  from  him  and  re- 
turns to  him.  As  the  soul  thus  reverts  to  God  after  death,  there 
is  neither  purgatory  nor  hell,  and  all  external  cult  is  useless. 
Thus  at  one  blow  was  destroyed  the  efficacy  of  all  sacerdotal  ob- 
servances and  of  the  sacraments.  Of  the  latter,  indeed,  no  terms 
were  severe  enough  to  express  their  contempt,  and  they  were 
sometimes  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  the  Eucharist  tasted  to  them 
lil^e  dung.  Man  being  thus  God  by  nature,  has  in  him  all  that  is 
divine,  and  each  one  may  say  that  he  himself  created  the  universe. 
One  of  the  accusations  brought  against  Master  Eckart  was  that 
he  had  declared  that  his  little  finger  created  the  world.  Nay, 
more,  man  can  so  unite  himself  with  God  that  he  can  do  whatever 
God  does ;  he  thus  needs  no  God ;  he  is  impeccable,  and  whatever 
he  does  is  without  sin.  In  this  state  of  perfection  he  grieves  at 
nothing,  he  rejoices  at  nothing,  he  is  free  from  all  virtue  and  all 
virtuous  actions.  No  one  is  bound  to  labor  for  his  bread  ;  as  all 
things  are  in  common,  each  one  may  take  what  his  necessities  or 
desires  may  prompt.* 

The  practical  deductions  from  these  doctrines  were  not  only 
destructive  to  the  Church,  but  dangerous  to  the  moral  and  social 
order.     The  lofty  mysticism  of  the  teachers  might  preserve  them 

*  C.  3  Clement,  v.  3. — Johann.  de  Ochsenstein  (or  of  Zurich)  (Mosheim  de 
Beghardis  pp.  255-61).— Concil.  Colon,  ann.  1306  c.  1,  2  (Hartzlieim  IV.  100-2). 
— Vitodurani  Chron.ann.  1344  (Eccard.  Corp.  Hist.  1. 190G-7).— Alvar.  Pelag.  de 
Planctu  Eccles.  Lib.  ii.  art.  52. — Cour.  de  Monte  Puellarum  contra  Begehardoa 
(Mag.  Bib.  Pat.  XIII.  342-3).  -Tritliem.  Chron.  Hirsuug.  ann.  1356.— D'Argentrfe, 
Coll.  Judic.  I.  I.  377.— Nider  Formicar.  in.  v. — W.  Preger,  Meister  Eckart  u.  d. 
Inquisition,  pp.  45-7. — Ilaupt,  Zeitsclirift  fur  Kircliengeschiciite,  1885,  557-8. 


BRETHREN    OF    THE    FREE    SPIRIT.  357 

from  the  evil  results  which  flowed  from  the  presumption  of  im- 
peccability. In  their  austere  stoicism  they  condemned  all  sexual 
indulgence  save  that  of  which  the  sole  object  was  the  procure- 
ment of  offspring.  They  taught  that  a  woman  in  marrying 
should  deeply  deplore  the  loss  of  her  virginity,  and  that  no  one 
was  perfect  in  whom  promiscuous  nakedness  could  awaken  either 
shame  or  passion.  That  tests  of  this  kind  were  not  infrequent, 
the  history  of  ill-regulated  enthusiasm,  from  the  time  of  the  early 
Christians,  will  not  permit  us  to  doubt,  and  the  Beghards  suc- 
ceeded so  well  in  subduing  the  senses  that  a  hostile  controversial- 
ist can  only  suggest  Satanic  influence,  well  known  to  demonolo- 
gists  for  its  refrigerating  power,  as  an  explanation  of  their  won- 
derful self-control  under  such  temptation.  Yet  this  rare  exalta- 
tion of  austerity  was  not  possible  to  aU  natures.  It  was  easy  for 
him  Avho  had  not  risen  superior  to  the  allurements  of  the  senses  to 
imagine  himself  perfected,  impeccable,  and  entitled  to  gratify  his 
passions.  St.  Paul,  in  arguing  against  the  bondage  of  the  Old  Law, 
had  furnished  texts  which,  when  cited  apart  from  their  contexts, 
could  be  and  were  alleged  in  justification  :  "  For  the  law  of  the 
spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  hath  made  me  free  from  the  law  of 
sin  and  death  "  (Eom.  viii.  2) — "  The  law  is  not  made  for  a  right- 
eous man  "  (1  Tim.  i.  9) — "  But  if  ye  be  led  of  the  Spirit  ye  are 
not  under  the  law  "  (Galat.  v.  18) — and  the  Brethren  of  the  Free 
Spirit  claimed  freedom  from  all  the  trammels  of  the  law.  Such  a 
doctrine  was  attractive  to  those  who  desired  excuse  and  oppor- 
tunity for  license,  and  the  evidence  is  too  abundant  and  confirma- 
tory for  us  to  doubt  that,  at  least  in  some  cases,  the  sectaries  aban- 
doned themselves  to  the  grossest  sensuality.  It  is  noteworthy 
that,  in  order  to  describe  the  divine  internal  light  Avhicli  they  en- 
joyed, they  invented  for  themselves  the  term  Illuminism,  which 
for  more  than  three  centuries  continued  to  be  of  most  serious  im- 
port.* 

As  a  branch  of  the  sect  may  be  reckoned  the  Luciferans,  who 
have  been  repeatedly  aUuded  to  above.     Pantheism,  of  course,  in- 

*  Nider.  Formicar.  in.  vi. — Concil.  Colon,  ann.  1306  c.  1  (Hartzheim  IV.  101). 
— Tritbem.  Cliron.  Ilirsaug.  ann.  1356. 

Poggio  states  that  in  his  time  a  number  of  ecclesiastics  in  Venice  corrupted 
many  women  with  this  theory  of  impeccability  and  of  nakedness  as  an  evidence 

of  a  state  of  grace. — Poggii  Dial,  contra  IIyi)ocrisun. 


358  GERMANY. 

eluded  Satan  as  an  emanation  from  G-od,  who  in  due  time  would 
be  restored  to  union  with  the  Godhead,  and  it  was  not  diflBcult 
to  assume  that  his  fallen  state  Avas  an  injustice.  In  1312  Lucifer- 
ans  were  discovered  at  Krems,  in  the  diocese  of  Passau,  whose 
bishop,  Bernhard,  together  with  Conrad,  Archbishop  of  Salzburg, 
and  Frederic,  Duke  of  Austria,  undertook  their  extirpation  with 
the  aid  of  the  Dominican  Inquisition,  which  seems  to  have  main- 
tained some  foothold  in  those  regions.  The  persecution  lasted 
until  1315,  but  the  sect  was  not  exterminated,  and  reappeared  re- 
peatedly in  after-years.  It  is  reported  to  have  been  thoroughly 
organized,  with  twelve  "apostles"  who  travelled  annually  through- 
out Germany,  making  converts  and  confirming  the  believers  in 
the  faith.  All  the  ceremonies  of  external  worship  were  rejected, 
but  they  did  not  enjoy  the  impeccability  of  lUuminism,  for  two  of 
their  ministers  were  held  to  enter  paradise  every  year,  where  they 
received  from  Enoch  and  Elias  the  power  of  absolving  their  fol- 
lowers, and  this  power  they  communicated  to  others  in  each  com- 
munity. Those  who  were  detected  proved  obdurate ;  they  were 
deaf  to  all  persuasion,  and  met  their  death  in  the  flames  with  the 
utmost  cheerfulness.  One  of  the  apostles,  who  was  burned  at  Vi- 
enna, stated,  under  torture,  that  there  were  eight  thousand  of  them 
scattered  throughout  Bohemia,  Austria,  and  Thuringia,  besides 
numbers  elsewhere,  Bohemia  was  especially  infected  with  these 
errors,  and  Trithemius,  in  the  opening  years  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, states  that  there  were  still  thousands  of  them  in  that  king- 
dom. This  is  doubtless  an  exaggeration,  if  not  a  complete  mis- 
take, but  they  were  again  discovered  in  Austria  in  1338  and  1395, 
and  many  of  them  were  burned.* 

The  tendency  to  mysticism  which  found  its  complete  expres- 
sion in  the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit  influenced  greatly  the  de- 
velopment of  German  rehgious  thought  in  channels  which,  although 
assumedly  orthodox,  trenched  narrowly  upon  heresy.  If,  as  Alt- 
meyer  argues,  a  period  of  tribulation  leads  to  the  predominance  of 
sentiment  over  intellect,  to  the  yearning  for  direct  intercourse  be- 
tween the  soul  and  the  Divine  Essence,  which  is  the  supreme  aim 
of  the  mystic,  the  Germany  of  the  fourteenth  century  had  troubles 


*  Tritheni.  Chroii.  Hirsaug.  anu.  1315. — Schrodl,  Passavia  Sacra,  Passau,  1879, 
pp.  242-3,  247,  284. 


MASTER    ECKART.  359 

enough  to  justify  the  development  of  mysticism.  Yet  it  is  rather 
a  question  of  the  mental  characteristics  of  a  race  than  of  external 
circumstances.  Bonaventura  Avas  the  father  of  the  mystics,  yet  he 
founded  no  sect  at  home  ;  France,  in  the  hundred  years'  war  with 
England,  had  ample  experience  of  trial,  and  yet  mysticism  never 
flourished  on  her  soil.  In  Germany,  however,  the  m3^stic  tendency 
of  religious  sentiment  during  the  fourteenth  century  is  the  most 
marked  spiritual  phenomenon  of  the  period.  Few  names  in  the 
first  quarter  of  the  century  were  more  respected  than  that  of 
Master  Eckart,  who  stood  high  in  the  ranks  of  the  great  Domin- 
ican Order.  I  have  already  (Vol.  I.,  p.  360)  related  how  he  fell 
under  suspicion  of  participating  in  the  errors  of  the  Beghards,  how 
his  brethren  vainly  strove  to  save  him,  and  how  the  Archbishop 
of  Cologne  won  a  decided  victorj'-  over  the  feeble  and  unorganized 
Dominican  Inquisition  by  vindicating  the  subjection  of  a  Domin- 
ican to  his  episcopal  Inquisition.  If  the  twenty-eight  articles 
finally  condemned  by  John  XXII.  as  heretical  be  correctly  ex- 
tracted from  Eckart's  teachings,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he 
was  deeply  infected  with  the  pantheistic  speculations  of  the 
Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit,  that  he  admitted  the  common  divin- 
ity of  man  and  God,  and  shared  in  the  dangerous  deductions  which 
proved  tliat  sin  and  virtue  were  the  same  in  the  eyes  of  God.  To 
a  hierarchy  founded  on  sacerdotalism,  moreover,  nothing  could  be 
more  revolutionary  than  the  rejection  of  external  cult,  which  was 
the  necessary  conclusion  from  the  doctrine  that  there  is  no  virtue 
in  external  acts,  but  that  only  the  internal  operations  of  the  soul 
are  of  moment ;  that  no  man  should  regret  the  commission  of  sin, 
or  ask  anything  of  God.* 

The  importance  of  Eckart's  views  lies  not  so  much  in  liis  own 
immediate  influence  as  in  that  of  his  disciples.  lie  was  the  founder 
of  the  school  of  German  mystics,  through  whom  the  speculations 


*  Altmeye-r,  Les  Precurseurs  de  la  RSforme  aux  Pays-Bas,  I.  94.— Raynald. 
ann.  1329,  No.  71. 

For  the  relations  of  Master  Eckart  with  the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit,  see 
Preger,  Vorarbeiten  zu  einer  Gescliichte  derdentschen  Mvstik  (Zoit^^rhrift  fiir  die 
hist.  Theol.  1869,  pp.  68-78).  The  foot  that  the  bull  of  John  XXII.,  "  In  ayro 
Dominico''  (Ripoll  VII.  57;  of.  Herman.  Corner!  Chron.  ap.  Eccard.  Corp.  Hist. 
II.  1036-7),  condemning  Master  Eckart's  errors,  has  until  within  a  few  years  passed 
as  a  general  bull  against  the  Brethren,  sufficiently  shows  the  connection. 


360  GERMANY. 

of  Amauri  of  Bene,  in  various  dilutions,  made  a  deep  impression  on 
the  religious  development  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries. 
All  the  leaders  in  the  remarkal)le  association  known  as  the  "  Friends 
of  God"  drew,  directly  or  indirectly,  their  inspiration  from  Master 
Eckart,  and  all,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  reveal  their  affinity  to 
the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit,  although  they  succeeded  in  keep- 
ing technically  within  the  limits  of  orthodoxy. 

John  of  Eysbroek,  humane  and  gentle  as  he  was,  regarded  the 
Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit  with  such  horror  that  he  deemed  them 
worthy  of  the  stake.  Yet,  though  he  avoided  their  pantheism,  he 
taught,  like  them,  the  supreme  end  of  existence  in  the  absorption 
of  the  individual  into  the  infinite  substance  of  God  ;  moreover,  the 
Perfect,  inflamed  by  divine  love,  are  dead  to  themselves  and  to  the 
world,  and  are  thus  incapable  of  sin.  It  is  no  wonder  that  Gerson 
regarded  as  dangerous  these  doctrines,  so  nearly  akin  to  those  of 
the  Beghards,  and  though  liysbroek  might  hesitate  to  draw  from 
them  the  conclusions  inevitable  to  hardier  thinkers,  they  were 
sufficient  to  render  unsuccessful  the  attempt  made,  in  1624,  to 
canonize  him,  in  spite  of  the  incontestable  miracles  wrought  at  his 
tomb.  His  most  distinguished  disciple  was  Gerard  Groot,  who 
partially  outgrew  the  metaphysical  subtleties  of  his  teacher  and 
turned  his  energies  to  the  more  practical  directions  out  of  which 
sprang  the  Brethren  of  the  Common  Life.  Groot  was  equally 
severe  upon  the  corruption  of  the  clergy  and  the  errors  of  the  her- 
etics. When  the  introduction  of  the  Inquisition  into  Germany 
drove  the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit  to  find  new  places  of  refuge, 
some  of  them  came  to  Holland,  where  the  prevalence  of  panthe- 
istic mysticism  gave  opportunity  of  spreading  their  doctrines. 
Groot's  own  views  sufficiently  resembled  theirs  to  render  their 
bolder  speculations  doubly  offensive  to  him,  and  he  sought  to  re- 
press them  with  especial  zeal.  The  convent  of  Augustinian  Her- 
mits at  Dordrecht  had  the  reputation  of  being  tainted  with  the 
heresy,  and  Groot  was  eager  to  detect  and  punish  it.  Bartholo- 
mew, one  of  the  Augustinians,  was  particularly  suspected,  and 
Groot  proposed  to  follow  him  secretly  with  a  notary  and  take 
down  his  words.  In  this,  or  some  other  way,  evidence  was  ob- 
tained ;  there  was  no  Inquisition  in  HoUand,  and  Groot  procured 
his  citation  before  Florent,  Bishop  of  Utrecht,  about  the  year  1380. 
The  case  was  heard  before  the  episcopal  vicar ;  Bartholomew  de- 


GERARD    GROOT.  361 

nied  the  expressions  attributed  to  him  and  was  let  off  with  an  in- 
junction to  publicly  repeat  the  denial  in  Kampen  and  Zwollo, 
where  he  was  said  to  have  uttered  his  heresies.  This  unexpected 
lenity  excited  the  indignation  of  Groot,  who  had  sufficient  influ- 
ence to  induce  Bishop  Florent  to  take  up  the  case  again  and  try  it 
personally,  Bartholomew  endeavored  to  escape  his  persecutor  by 
appearing  a  day  in  advance  of  the  one  set  for  his  trial,  but  word 
was  sent  to  Groot,  who  threw  himself  into  a  wagon,  and  by  travel- 
ling all  night  reached  Utrecht  in  time.  On  this  occasion  he  was 
successful;  Bartholomew  was  condemned  as  a  heretic,  abjured, 
and  was  sentenced  to  wear  crosses  in  the  form  of  scissors.  The 
Augustinians  did  not  lack  friends,  and  they  retaliated  on  tliose 
who  had  busied  themselves  in  the  matter.  The  magistrates  of 
Kampen  prosecuted  some  women  who  had  served  as  witnesses 
and  fined  them,  and  they  also  banished  for  ten  years  Werner 
Kejmkamp,  a  friend  of  Groot,  who  subsequently  was  thrice  prior 
of  houses  of  Brethren  of  the  Common  Life.  Groot  himself  did 
not  escape,  for  soon  afterwards  Bishop  Florent,  for  the  purpose  of 
silencing  him,  issued  an  order  withdrawing  all  commissions  to 
preach.  Groot  then  endeavored  to  procure  from  Urban  VI.  papal 
commissions  as  preacher  and  inquisitor,  and  sent  to  Home  ten 
florins  to  pay  for  the  bulls.  Fortunately  for  his  fame,  he  died,  in 
1384,  before  the  return  of  his  messenger,  and  Holland  was  spared 
the  effects  of  his  inconsiderate  zeal,  inflamed  by  strife  and  armed 
with  the  irresponsible  power  of  the  Inquisition.  In  his  gentler 
capacity  he  left  his  mantle  to  Florent  Badewyns,  under  whom 
were  developed  the  communities  of  the  Common  Life.  These 
spread  rapidly  throughout  the  Netherlands  and  Germany,  and 
though  occasionally  the  subject  of  inquisitorial  persecution,  they 
were  covered  by  the  decision  of  Martin  V.,  when  Matthew  Grabon, 
at  the  Council  of  Constance,  endeavored  to  procure  the  condemna- 
tion of  the  Beguines,  of  which  more  anon.  After  this  they  flour- 
ished without  opposition,  supporting  themselves  by  disseminating 
culture,  as  educators  and  co})icrs  of  manuscripts.  After  the  Ref- 
ormation the  communities  rapidly  died  out,  although  the  house 
of  Emmerich,  near  Diisseldorf,  remained  to  be  closed  by  Napoleon, 
in  1811,  and  the  four  brethren  then  ejected  from  it  continued  to 
observe  the  rules,  till  the  last  one,  Gerard  Mulder,  died  at  Zeve- 
naar,  March   15,  1854.     One  branch  of  the  brethren,  however, 


3G2  GERMANY. 

adopted  the  Rule  of  the  canons-regular  of  St.  Augristin.  Their 
convent  of  Windesheim  became  the  model  wliich  was  universally 
followed,  and  the  order  had  the  honor  of  training  two  such  men 
as  Thomas-a-Kempis  and  Erasmus.  Tlie  Imitation  of  Christ  is  the 
final  exquisite  flower  of  tlio  moderated  mysticism  of  John  of  Tlys- 
broek.  Brought  down  to  practical  life,  this  mysticism  contributed 
largely  to  the  spiritual  movement  which  culminated  in  the  Ref- 
ormation, for  it  taught  the  superfluity  of  external  works  and  the 
dependence  of  the  individual  on  himself  alone  for  salvation.  In 
this  the  Brethren  of  the  Common  Life  were  active.  To  them 
dogma  became  less  important  than  the  interior  discipline  which 
should  fit  men  to  be  really  children  of  God.  Preaching  among 
the  people  and  teaching  in  the  schools,  such  brethi'en  as  Henry 
Harphius,  John  Brugman,  Denis  Yan  Leeuwen,  Jon  Van  Goch, 
and  John  Wessel  of  Groningen,  were  unwittingly  undennining 
the  power  of  the  hierarchy,  although  they  \irtuaUy  escaped  all  im- 
putation of  heresy  and  danger  of  persecution.* 

Less  lasting,  though  more  noticeable  at  the  time,  was  the  asso- 
ciation of  Friends  of  God,  which  formed  itself  in  the  upper  Rhine- 
lands.  The  most  prominent  disciple  of  Master  Eckart  was  John 
Tauler,  who  retained  enough  of  his  master's  doctrines  to  render 
him  amenable  to  the  charge  of  heresy  had  there  been  in  those 
days  a  German  Inquisition  in  working  order.  That  he  escaped 
prosecution  is  the  most  conclusive  evidence  that  the  machinery  of 
persecution  was  thoroughly  out  of  gear.  In  the  heights  of  his 
illuminated  quietism  all  the  personality  of  the  devotee  was  lost  in 
the  abyss  of  Divinity.  No  human  tongue  could  describe  the  resig- 
nation to  God  in  which  the  whole  being  is  merged  so  that  it  lost 
all  sense  of  power  of  its  own.  No  priestly  ministrant  or  mediator 
was  required.  The  individual  could  bring  his  soul  into  relations 
with  the  Godhead  so  intimate  that  it  Avas  virtually  lost  in  the 
Divine  Essence,  and  he  could  become  so  thoroughly  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Holy  Ghost  that  he  was,  so  to  speak,  inspired,  and 

*  Mosheim  de  Beghardis,  pp.  305,  433-57. — Jundt,  Les  Amis  de  Dieu,  pp. 
05-66.— Gersoni  0pp.  Ed.  1494,  xv.  Z-xvi.  B.— D'Argentrg,  Coll.  Judic.  I.  ii.  152.— 
Altmeyer,  Les  Precurseurs  de  la  Rgforme  aux  Pays-Bas,  I.  107-117,  166-188.— 
Acquoy,  Gerardi  Magni  Epistolae,  Amstelod.  1857,  pp.  28,  32-5,  37-8,  40-2,  48-9, 
52-4,  57-60,  69,  83,  101.— Von  der  Hardt,  III.  107-20.— Bonet-Maury,  G6rard 
Groot,  pp.  37-8,  49-54,  62-4,  83-5. 


THE    FRIENDS  OF    GOD.  363 

his  acts  were  the  acts  of  the  Third  Person  of  the  Trinity.  All  this 
was  possible  for  the  layman  without  sacerdotal  observance.  Man 
was  answerable  for  himself  to  himself  alone,  and  could  make  him- 
self at  one  with  God  without  tlie  intervention  of  the  priest.* 

Great  as  was  Tauler's  renown  as  the  foremost  preacher  of  his 
day,  he  bowed  as  a  little  child  before  the  mysterious  layman  known 
as  the  Friend  of  God  in  the  Oberland.  In  the  full  strenerth  of 
mature  manhood,  when  at  least  fifty  years  of  age  and  when  aU 
Strassburg  was  hanging  on  his  words,  a  stranger  sought  his  pres- 
ence and  probed  to  the  bottom  his  secret  weaknesses.  He  was  a 
Pharisee,  proud  of  his  learning  and  his  skill  in  scholastic  theology ; 
before  he  could  be  fit  for  the  guidance  of  souls  he  must  cast  off  all 
reliance  on  his  own  strength  and  become  as  an  infant  relying  on 
God  alone.  Overcome  by  the  mystic  power  of  his  visitor,  the 
doctor  of  theology  subdued  his  pride,  and  in  obedience  to  the 
command  of  the  stranger,  who  never  revealed  his  name,  Tauler 
for  two  years  abstained  from  preaching  and  from  hearing  confes- 
sions. From  this  struggle  witli  himself  he  emerged  a  new  man, 
and  formed  one  of  the  remarkable  band  of  Friends  of  God  whom 
the  nameless  stranger  was  engaged  in  selecting  and  uniting.f 

This  association  was  not  numerous,  for  only  rare  souls  could 
rise  to  the  altitude  in  which  they  would  surely  wish  only  what 
God  wishes  and  dislike  what  God  dislikes ;  but  its  adepts  were 
scattered  from  the  Netherlands  to  Genoa,  and  from  the  Rhine- 
lands  to  Hungary.     Terrible  were  the  struggles  and  spiritual  con- 


*  J.  Tauleri  Institt.  c.  12. — VitfE  D.  Johannis  Tauleri  Historia. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  Taiiler's  writings  liave  been  tlie  subject  of  contradictory 
opinion  and  action  on  the  part  of  tlie  Church.  Their  tendencies  to  Ilhiminisiu 
and  Quietism  were  recognized,  and,  in  1603,  the  Congregation  of  the  Index  pro- 
posed to  prepare  an  expurgated  edition  of  his  works  and  of  those  of  Savonarola, 
but  the  project  was  never  executed. — Reusch,  Dcr  Index  der  verbotenen  Biichcr, 
I.  370,  469,  523,  589. 

t  VittB  Tauleri  Historia. 

M.  Jundt,  as  the  result  of  a  series  of  elaborate  and  ingenious  investigations, 
feels  himself  authorized  to  assume  that  the  mysterious  Friend  of  God  in  the  Ober- 
land, who  has  given  rise  to  so  much  discussion,  was  John  of  Rutberg;  tliut  ho 
was  a  resident  of  Coire,  and  that  his  final  hermitage  was  in  the  pari.^i  of  Ganter- 
echwyl.  Canton  of  St.  Gall  (Jundt,  Amis  de  Dieu,  Paris,  1879,  pp.  334-42). 
Prof.  Ch.  Schmidt,  however,  still  considers  that  the  mystery  has  not  been  solved. 
— Prgcis  dc  I'Histoire  de  I'Eglisc  de  I'Occident,  Paris,  1885,  p.  304. 


364  GERMANY. 

flicts,  the  alternations  of  hope  and  despair,  of  ravishing  ecstasies 
and  hideous  temjitations,  with  which  (xod  tried  the  neophyte  who 
sought  to  ascend  into  the  serene  atmosphere  of  mystic  illuminism 
— struggles  and  conflicts  which  form  a  strangely  resembling  pro- 
tot}^ie  of  those  which  for  long  years  tested  the  steadfastness  of 
John  Bunyan.  When  at  length  the  initiation  was  safely  endured, 
God  drew  them  to  him,  he  illuminated  their  souls  so  that  they  be- 
came one  with  him ;  they  were  gods  by  grace,  even  as  he  is  God 
by  nature.  Then  they  were  in  a  condition  of  absolute  sinlessness, 
and  could  enjoy  the  assurance  that  it  would  continue  during  hfe, 
so  that  at  death  they  would  ascend  at  once  to  heaven  with  no 
preliminary  purgatory.* 

In  many  of  their  tenets  and  practices  there  is  a  strange  rever- 
beration of  Hinduism,  all  the  stranger  that  there  can  be  no  possi- 
ble connection  between  them,  unless  perchance  there  may  be  some 
elements  derived  from  mystic  Arabic  Aristotelianism,  which  so 
strongly  influenced  scholastic  thought.f  As  the  old  Brahmanic 
tapas,  or  austere  meditation,  enabled  man  to  acquire  a  share  of  the 
divine  nature,  so  the  interior  exercises  of  the  Friends  of  God  assim- 
ilated man  to  the  Divinity,  and  the  miraculous  powers  which  they 
acquired  find  their  prototypes  in  the  Eishis  and  Rahats.  The  self- 
inflicted  barbarities  of  the  Yoga  system  were  emulated  in  the  efforts 
necessary  to  subdue  the  rebellious  flesh ;  Rulman  Merswin,  for  in- 
stance, used  to  scourge  himself  with  wires  and  then  rub  salt  into 
the  wounds.  The  religious  ecstasies  of  the  Friends  of  God  were 
the  counterpart  of  the  Samadhi  or  beatific  insensibility  of  the 
Hindu ;  and  the  supreme  good  which  they  set  before  themselves 
was  the  same  as  that  of  the  Sankhya  school — the  renunciation  of 
the  will  and  the  freedom  from  all  passions  and  desires,  even  that 
of  salvation.  Yet  these  resemblances  were  modified  by  the  Chris- 
tian sense  of  the  omnipotence  and  omnipresence  of  God,  and  by 
the  more  practical  character  of  the  Western  mind,  which  did  not 
send  its  votaries  into  the  jungle  and  forest,  but  ordered  them,  if 
laymen,  to  continue  their  worldly  life ;  if  rich,  they  were  not  to 
despoil  themselves,  but  to  employ  their  riches  in  good  works,  and 
to  discharge  their  duties  to  man  as  well  as  to  God.    Rulman  Mers- 


*  Jundt,  pp.  37-9,  60-3,  83,  106-7,  166,  313. 

t  See  Renan,  Averrofes  et  rAverroisme,  3^  £d.  pp.  95,  144-6. 


THE    FRIENDS    OF    GOD.  365 

win  was  a  banker,  and  continued  in  active  business  while  found- 
ing the  community  of  the  Griin  Wohrd  and  writing  tlie  treatises 
which  were  the  support  and  the  comfort  of  the  faithful.  Yet  the 
chief  of  them  all  and  liis  immediate  disciples  founded  a  hermitage 
in  the  wilderness,  where  they  devoted  themselves  to  propitiating 
the  wrath  of  God.  The  unutterable  wickedness  of  man  called  for 
divine  vengeance.  Earthquakes,  pestilence,  famine,  had  been  dis- 
regarded warnings,  and  only  the  intercession  of  the  Friends  of 
God  had  obtained  repeated  reprieves.  The  Great  Schism,  in  1378, 
was  a  new  and  still  greater  calamity,  and  in  1379  an  angel  mes- 
senger informed  them  that  the  final  punishment  was  postponed  for 
a  year,  after  which  they  must  not  ask  for  further  delay.  Still,  in 
1380,  thirteen  of  them  were  mysteriously  called  to  assemble  in  a 
"  divine  diet,"  to  which  an  angel  brought  a  letter  informing  them 
that,  at  the  prayer  of  the  Virgin,  God  had  granted  a  respite  of 
three  years  provided  they  would  constitute  themselves  "  prisoners 
of  God,"  living  the  life  of  recluses  in  absolute  silence,  broken  only 
two  days  in  the  week  from  noon  to  eve,  and  then  only  to  ask  for 
necessaries  or  to  give  spiritual  counsel.  To  this  they  assented,  and 
not  long  afterwards  they  disappear  from  view.* 

The  Friends  of  God  are  noteworthy  not  only  as  a  significant 
development  of  the  spiritual  tendencies  of  the  age,  but  they  have 
a  peculiar  interest  for  us  from  their  relations  with  the  Church  on 
the  one  hand  and  with  the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit  on  the 
other.  They  were  an  outgrowth  of  the  latter,  though  they  avoid- 
ed the  deplorable  moral  extravagances  of  the  parent  sect.  The 
"  Ninth  Rock,"  which  was  the  supreme  height  of  ascetic  illuminism 
of  the  Beghards,  reappears  in  the  same  sense  in  the  most  notable  of 
Rulman  Merswin's  works,  attributed  until  recently  to  Henry  Suso. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  Nider  confounded  the  Friends  of  God  with 
the  Beghards,  though  Merswin's  "  Baner  Buechelin  "  was  written 
for  the  purpose  of  denouncing  the  errors  of  the  latter.  In  nnich, 
as  we  have  seen,  they  differed  from  the  current  doctrines  of  the 
Church,  carrying  their  aberrations  further  than  those  which  in  the 
seventeenth  century  were  so  severely  repressed  in  Molinos  and  the 
lUuminati.  To  these  they  added  special  errors  of  their  own. 
Many  Jews  and  Moslems,  they  said,  were  saved,  for  God  aban- 


Jundt,  pp.  143,  164,  308-9,  312-13,  316-17. 


366  GERMANY. 

dons  none  who  seek  him,  and  thoiig-h  they  cannot  enjoy  Christian 
baptism,  God  himself  baptizes  thorn  spiritually  in  the  sufferings  of 
the  death-agony.  In  the  same  spirit  they  refused  to  denounce  the 
heretic  to  human  justice  for  fear  of  anticipating  divine  justice; 
they  could  tolerate  him  in  the  world  as  long  as  God  saw  fit  to  do 
so.  Yet  they  had  one  saving  principle  which  preserved  them 
from  the  temporal  and  spiritual  consequences  of  their  errors,  giv- 
ing us  a  valuable  insight  into  the  relations  between  the  Church 
and  heresy.  While  denouncing  in  the  strongest  language  the  cor- 
ruptions and  worldliness  of  the  establishment,  they  professed  the 
most  implicit  obedience  to  Kome,  and  much  could  be  overlooked 
or  pardoned  so  long  as  the  supremacy  of  the  Holy  See  was  not 
called  in  question.  When,  in  June,  1377,  the  Friend  of  God  in 
the  Oberland  was  inspired  to  visit,  with  a  comrade,  Gregory  XI., 
and  warn  him  of  the  dangers  which  threatened  Christendom,  they 
spoke  to  him  with  the  utmost  freedom,  and  though  he  at  first  was 
angered,  he  finally  recognized  in  them  the  envoys  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  honored  them  greatly,  urging  them  to  resume  their 
abandoned  design  of  founding  a  great  institution  of  their  order. 
Gregory  was  relentless  in  the  extermination  of  Waldenses,  Beg- 
hards,  and  the  remnants  of  the  Cathari,  but  he  saw  nothing  to  ob- 
ject to  in  the  mysticism  and  illuminism  of  his  visitors.  He  did 
not  even  take  offence  when  they  threatened  him  with  death  with- 
in the  twelvemonth  if  he  did  not  reform  the  Church.  In  effect  he 
died  March  28,  1378 ;  but,  if  we  may  believe  Gerson,  his  dying 
regrets  were  not  that  he  had  neglected  these  warnings,  but  that 
by  too  credulously  listening  to  the  visions  of  male  and  female 
prophets  he  had  paved  the  way  for  the  Great  Schism,  which  he 
foresaw  would  break  out  when  he  was  removed  from  the  scene.* 

After  this  hasty  review  of  the  more  orthodox  developments  of 
mysticism  we  may  return  to  the  history  of  the  Brethren  of  the 
Free  Spirit,  who  maintained  the  pantheistic  doctrine  in  all  its 
crudity,  and  did  not  shrink  from  its  legitimate  deductions.     Tow- 

*  Mosheim  de  Beghardis  p.  256.— Jundt,  pp.  13,  42-3,  147,  155-60,  282-7, 
347. — Nider  Formicar.  in.  2. — Gerson.  de  Exam.  Doctrinarum  P.  n.  Consid.  3. 

There  is  nothing  improbable  in  the  freedom  of  speech  attributed  to  the 
Friends  of  God  in  their  interview  with  Gregory.  Apocalyptic  inspiration  was 
common  at  the  period,  and  St.  Birgitta  of  Sweden,  and  St.  Catharine  of  Siena, 
were  not  particularly  reticent  in  their  language  to  the  successors  of  St.  Peter. 


THE    BRETHREN    OF    THE    FREE    SPIRIT.  3fif 

ards  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  transcendent  merits 
of  beggary,  so  long  acknowledged,  began  to  be  questioned.  In 
1274  the  Council  of  Lyons  endeavored  to  suppress  the  unauthor- 
ized menchcant  associations.  In  1286  Honorius  lY.  condemned 
the  Segarellists,  and  some  ten  years  later  the  persecution,  by  Boni- 
face VIII.,  of  the  Celestines  and  stricter  Franciscans  showed  that 
poverty  was  no  longer  to  be  regarded  as  the  supreme  virtue. 
About  the  same  time  he  issued  a  bull  ordering  the  active  jiersecu- 
tion  of  some  heretics,  whose  teaching  that  perfection  required  men 
and  women  to  go  naked  and  not  to  labor  with  the  hands  would 
seem  to  identify  them  with  the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit.  The 
same  feeling  manifested  itself  contemporaneously  in  Germany. 
The  first  instance  of  actual  persecution  recorded  is  a  curt  notice 
that,  in  1290,  the  Franciscan  lector  at  Colmar  caused  to  be  arrested 
two  Beghards  and  two  Beguines,  and  several  others  at  Basle 
whom  he  considered  to  be  heretics.  Two  years  later  the  Provin- 
cial Council  of  Mainz,  held  at  Aschaffenburg,  emphatically  repeat- 
ed the  condemnation  of  the  Beghards  and  Beguines,  expressed  by 
the  previous  council  of  1259,  and  this  was  again  repeated  by  an- 
other council  of  Mainz  in  1310,  while  other  canons  regulating  the 
recognized  communities  of  Beguines  show  that  the  distinction  was 
clearly  drawn  between  those  who  led  a  settled  life  under  super- 
vision and  the  wandering  beggars  who  preached  in  caverns  and 
disseminated  doctrines  little  understood,  but  regarded  with  suspi- 
cion,* 

It  was  Henry  von  Yirnenburg,  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  how- 
ever, who  commenced  the  war  against  them  which  was  to  last  so 
long.  Elected  in  1306,  he  immediately  assembled  a  provincial 
council,  of  which  the  first  two  canons  are  devoted  to  them  with  an 
amplitude  proving  how  important  they  were  becoming.  They 
wore  a  long  tabard  and  tunics  with  cowls  distinguishing  them 
from  the  people  at  large;  they  had  the  hardiliood  to  engage  in 
public  disputation  with  the  Franciscans  and  Dominicans,  and  the 
obstinacy  to  refuse  to  be  overcome  in  argument,  and,  what  was 
worse,  their  persistent  beggary  was  so  successful  that  it  sensibly 
diminished  the  alms  Avhich  were  the  support  of  the  authorized 


*  Rivynald.  ann.  1296,  No.  34. — Annal.  Domin.  Colmar.  ann.  1290  (Urstisii 
Germ,  Histor.  II,  25).— Hartzheim  IV.  54,  201. 


368  GERMANY. 

Mendicants.  All  this  shows  the  absence  of  any  papal  inquisition 
and  an  enjoyment  of  practical  toleration  unknown  outside  of  the 
boundaries  of  Germany,  but  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  Beghardsdid 
not  publicly  reveal  their  more  dangerous  and  repulsive  doctrines, 
for  the  enumeration  of  their  errors  by  the  council  presents  thera 
in  a  very  moderate  form.  Still,  the  archbishop  pronounced  them 
excommunicated  heretics,  to  be  suppressed  by  the  secular  arm  un- 
less they  recanted  within  fifteen  days.  A  month  was  given  them 
to  abandon  their  garments  and  mode  of  life,  after  which  they 
were  to  earn  their  bread  by  honest  labor.  This  was  well-inten- 
tioned legislation,  but  it  seems  to  have  remained  wholly  inopera- 
tive. The  Beghards  continued  to  assail  the  Mendicants  with  such 
ardor  and  success  that  the  Franciscans,  who  were  cri])pled  by  the 
death  of  their  lector  in  1305,  applied  for  succor  to  their  general, 
Gonsalvo.  Thp  necessity  must  have  been  pressing,  for  in  1308  he 
sent  to  their  assistance  the  greatest  schoolman  of  the  Order,  Duns 
Scotus.  He  was  received  with  the  enthusiasm  which  his  eminence 
merited,  but,  unfortunately,  he  died  in  November  of  the  same  year, 
and  the  Beghards  were  able  to  continue  their  proselytism  without 
efficient  opposition.* 

About  this  time  their  missionary  labors  seem  to  have  become 
particularly  active  and  to  have  attracted  wide  attention.  We  have 
seen  how,  in  1310,  the  Beguine,  Marguerite  Porete  of  Ilainault,  was 
burned  in  Paris,  and  bore  her  martyrdom  with  unshrinking  firm- 
ness. In  the  same  year  occurred  the  Council  of  Mainz  already 
referred  to,  and  also  a  council  of  Treves,  in  which  their  unauthor- 
ized exposition  of  Scripture  was  denounced,  and  all  parish  priests 
were  required  to  summon  them  to  abandon  their  evil  ways  within 
a  fortnight,  under  pain  of  excommunication.  In  1309  we  hear  of 
certain  wandering  hypocrites  called  Lollards,  who,  throughout 
Ilainault  and  Brabant,  had  considerable  success  in  obtaining  con- 
verts among  noble  ladies. f 

This  missionary  fervor  seems  to  have  attracted  attention  to  the 
sect,  leading  to  special  condemnation  under  the  authority  of  the 


*  Concil.  Colon,  anu.  1306,  c.  1,  2  (Hartzheim  IV.  100-2).— Wadding,  ann. 
1305,  No.  12.— Mosheim  de  Besjliardis  pp.  232-4. 

t  Concil.  Trevirens.  ann.  1310  c.  51  (Martene  Thesaur.  IV.  250). — Hocsemii 
Gest.  Pontif.  Leod.  Lib.  i.  c.  31  (Cliapeaville,  II.  350). 


THE    BRETHREN    OF    THE    FREE    SPIRIT.  369 

General  Council  of  Vienne,  which  was  assembled  in  Kovember, 
1311.  The  heresy  had  evidently  been  studied  with  some  care,  for 
the  first  tolerably  complete  account  which  we  have  of  its  doctrines 
is  embodied  in  the  canon  proscribing  it.  Bishops  and  inquisitors 
were  ordered  to  perform  their  office  diligently  in  tracking  all  who 
entertained  it,  and  seeing  that  they  were  duly  punished  unless 
they  would  freely  abjure.  Unfortunately,  Clement's  zeal  was  not 
satisfied  with  this.  The  pious  women  who  lived  in  communities 
under  the  name  of  Beguines  were  not  easily  distinguishable  from 
the  heretical  wanderers.  In  another  canon,  therefore,  the  Be- 
guinages  are  described  as  infected  with  those  Avho  dispute  about 
the  Trinity  and  the  Divine  Essence  and  disseminate  opinions  con- 
trary to  the  faith.  These  establishments  are  therefore  abolished. 
At  the  same  time  there  was  evidently  a  feeling  that  this  was  in- 
flicting a  wrong,  and  the  canon  ends  with  the  contradictory  dec- 
laration that  faithful  women,  either  vowing  chastity  or  not,  may 
live  together  in  houses  and  devote  themselves  to  penitence  and 
the  service  of  God.  There  was  a  lamentable  lack  of  clearness 
about  this  which  left  it  for  the  local  prelates  to  interpret  their 
duty  according  to  their  wishes.* 

The  Clementines,  or  book  of  canon  law  containing  these  pro- 
visions, was  not  issued  during  Clement's  life,  and  it  was  not  until 
November,  1317,  that  his  successor,  John  XXII.,  gave  them  legal 
force  by  their  authoritative  publication.  Apparently  the  bishops 
w^aited  for  this,  for  during  the  intei'im  we  hear  nothing  of  perse- 
cution, until  August,  131 7,  just  before  the  issue  of  the  Clemen- 
tines, when  John  of  Zurich,  Bishop  of  Strassburg,  suddenly  took 
the  matter  up.  He  did  not  act  under  the  canons  of  Vienne,  but 
under  those  of  1310  adopted  by  the  Council  of  Mainz,  of  Avhich 
province  he  was  a  suffragan ;  but  an  allusion  to  the  penalties  de- 
creed by  the  Holy  See  shows  that  the  action  at  Yienne  was  known. 
The  Beghards  apparently  had  sought  no  concealment,  for  he 
threatened  with  excommunication  all  who  should  not  within  three 
days  lay  aside  the  distinguishing  garments  of  the  sect,  and  their 
fearless  publicity  is  further  shown  by  the  bishop's  confiscating  the 
houses  in  which  their  assemblies  were  held,  and  forbidding  any 
one  to  read  or  listen  to  or  possess  their  hymns  and  writings,  which 


*  C.  3,  Clement,  v.  iii. ;  C.  1,  ni.  xi. 
II.— 24 


370  GERMANY. 

were  to  be  delivered  up  for  burning  within  fifteen  days.  The 
fact  that  among  them  were  many  clerks  in  holy  orders,  monks, 
married  folks,  and  others,  shows  that  their  opinions  were  widely 
held  among  those  who  were  not  mere  wandering  beggars — tlie 
latter  probably  being  merely  the  missionaries  who  made  converts 
and  administered  to  the  spiritual  needs  of  the  faithful.  John  of 
Zurich  was  not  content  with  merely  threatening.  He  made  a  vis- 
itation of  his  diocese,  in  which  he  found  many  of  the  sectaries.  He 
organized  an  Inquisition  of  learned  theologians,  by  whom  they 
were  tried ;  those  who  recanted  were  sentenced  to  wear  crosses — 
the  first  authentic  record  in  Germany  of  the  use  of  this  penance, 
so  long  since  established  elsewhere — and  those  who  were  obstinate 
he  handed  over  to  the  secular  arm  to  be  burned.  These  active 
proceedings  may  be  regarded  as  the  first  regular  exercise  of  the 
episcopal  Inquisition  on  German  soil.  Multitudes  of  Beghards 
fled  from  the  diocese,  and  in  June,  1318,  the  bishop  had  the  satis- 
faction of  reporting  his  success  to  his  fellow-suffragans  and  urg- 
ing them  to  follow  his  example.  Yet  this  persecution,  if  sharp, 
was  transitory,  for  in  1319  we  find  him  again  issuing  letters  to  his 
clergy,  saying  that  the  Clementines  had  been  enforced  elsewhere, 
but  not  in  the  diocese  of  Strassburg.  All  incumbents  are  ordered, 
under  pain  of  suspension,  to  require  the  Beguines  to  lay  aside  their 
vestments  within  fifteen  days  and  to  conform  to  the  usages  of  the 
Church.  If  any  refuse,  the  inquisitors  will  be  instructed  to  inquire 
into  their  faith.* 

*  Moshcim  de  Beghardis,  pp.  255-61,  268-9. — Haupt,  Zeitschrift  fur  K.  G. 
1885,  pp.  561-4. 

Many  of  the  decrees  of  tlio  Council  of  Vienne  were  circulated  at  the  time,  but 
Clement,  desiring  a  revision,  ordered  them  to  be  destroyed  or  surrendered.  Af- 
ter recasting  them,  they  were  adopted  by  a  consistory  held  March  21,  1314,  and 
copies  were  sent  to  some  of  the  universities;  but  Clement's  death,  on  April  20, 
caused  new  delay.  John  XXII.  subjected  them  to  another  revision,  and  they 
were  finally  published  October  25,  1317. — Franz  Ehrle,  Archiv  fiir  Litteratur-  u. 
Kirchengeschichte,  1885,  i:»p.  541-2. 

The  contradictory  character  of  the  provisions  concerning  the  Beguines  is 
doubtless  attributable  to  these  repeated  revisions. 

The  manner  in  which  John  of  Zurich  obtained  the  bishopric  of  Strassburg  is 
highly  illustrative  of  the  methods  of  the  papal  curia.  On  the  death  of  Bishop 
Frederic,  the  chapter  divided  and  elected  four  aspirants,  among  whom  was  John 
of  Ochsenstein,  a  favorite  of  the  Emperor  Albert,  who,  to  secure  his  confirmation, 


PERSECUTION    OP    THE    BEGUINES.  371 

Meanwhile  the  publication  of  the  Clementines  had  produced 
results  not  corresponding  exactly  to  the  intentions  of  Clement. 
The  canon  directed  against  the  heretics  received  little  attention, 
and  five  years  elapse  before  we  hear  of  any  serious  persecutions 
under  it.  The  heretics  were  poor ;  there  were  no  spoils  to  tem})t 
episcopal  officials  to  the  thankless  labor  of  tracking  them  and  try- 
ing them,  and  few  of  the  bishops  had  the  zeal  of  John  of  Zurich 
to  divert  them  from  their  temporal  cares  and  pleasures.  The 
Beguinages,  however,  were  an  easy  prey ;  there  was  property  to 
be  confiscated  in  rcAvard  of  intelligent  activity.  Besides,  many  of 
the  establishments  were  under  the  supervision  of  the  Mendicant 
Orders,  and  were  virtually  or  absolutely  Tertiary  houses,  the  de- 
struction of  which  gratified  the  inextinguishable  jealousy  between 
the  secular  clergy  and  the  Orders:  the  struggle  between  John 
XXII.  and  the  Franciscans,  moreover,  was  commencing,  and  the 
Tertiaries  of  the  latter,  who  were  popularly  known  as  Beguines  in 
France,  were  fair  game.  The  bishops  for  the  most  part,  therefore, 
neglected  the  saving  clause  of  the  canon  respecting  the  Beguin- 
ages, and  construed  hterally  and  pitilessly  the  orders  for  their 
abolition.  So  eager  were  they  to  gratify  their  vindictiveness 
against  the  Mendicants  that,  when  these  interfered  to  save  their 
Tertiaries,  they  were  excommunicated  as  fautors  and  defenders  of 
heresy.  Thus  arose  a  persecution  which,  though  bloodless,  was 
most  deplorable.  ALL  through  France  and  Germany  and  Italy  the 
poor  creatures  were  turned  adrift  upon  the  world,  without  means 
of  support.  Those  who  could,  found  husbands ;  many  were  driven 
to  a  life  of  prostitution,  others,  doubtless,  perished  of  want  and 
exposure.  Even  the  quasi-conventual  dress  to  which  they  were 
accustomed  was  proscribed,  and  they  were  forced  to  Avear  gay 
colors  under  pain  of  excommunication.  In  the  history  of  the 
Church  there  have  been  many  more  cruel  persecutions,  but  few 
which  in  suddenness  and  extent  have  caused  greater  misery,  and 
none,  we  are  safe  to  say,  so  wanton,  causeless,  and  lacking  even 
the  shadow  of  justification.    The  impression  made  on  the  popular 


sent  to  Clement  V.  his  chancellor,  John  of  Ziiricli,  Bishop  of  Eichstcilt,  and  the 
Abbot  of  Pairis.  The  envoys  returned  bringing  papal  briefs,  one  appointing  the 
chancellor  to  the  contested  see,  and  another  filling  that  of  Eichstedt  with  the 
abbot,— Closener's  Chronik  (Chron.  der  deutschen  Stiidte,  VIII.  91). 


372  GERMANY. 

mind  is  seen  in  the  current  report  that  on  his  death-bed  Clement 
bitterly  repented  of  three  things — that  he  had  poisoned  the  Em- 
peror Henry  YII.  and  that  he  had  destroyed  the  Orders  of  the 
Templars  and  of  the  Beguines.* 

The  Church  had  declared,  in  the  great  Council  of  Lateran,  that 
no  congregations  should  be  allowed  to  exist  save  under  some  ap- 
proved rule.  The  Beguines  had  gradually,  almost  unconsciously, 
grown  up  in  practical  contravention  of  this  canon.  The  solution 
of  their  present  difficulties  lay  in  attaching  themselves  to  some 
recognized  Order,  and  John  XXII.,  in  1319,  recognizing  the  mis- 
chief wrought  by  the  heedless  legislation  of  Vienne,  promised 
exemption  from  further  persecution  of  those  who  would  become 
Mendicant  Tertiaries.  Large  numbers  of  them  sought  this  refuge, 
though  their  adhesion  was  more  nominal  than  real.  They  preserved 
their  self-government,  their  habits  of  labor,  and  their  ownership 
of  individual  property.  In  a  bull  of  December  31,  1320,  and  oth- 
ers of  later  date,  John  drew  the  distinction  between  those  who 
lived  piously  and  obediently  in  their  houses,  and  those  who  wan- 
dered around  disputing  on  matters  of  faith.  The  former,  he  is 
told,  amount  to  two  hundred  thousand  in  Germany  alone,  and  he 
bitterly  reproached  the  bishops  who  were  disturbing  them  on  ac- 
count of  the  comparatively  small  number  whose  misconduct  had 
drawn  forth  the  misinterpreted  condemnation  of  Clement.  They 
are  in  future  to  be  left  in  peace.  This,  at  least,  put  an  end,  in  1321, 
to  the  persecution  of  those  of  Strassburg.f 

The  innocent  Beguines  thus  obtained  a  breathing-space,  and 
the  gaps  in  their  ranks  were  soon  filled  up.  The  obnoxious  mem- 
bers, however,  felt  the  effects  of  the  Clementine  canon  as  severely 
as  the  habitual  sloth  and  indifference  of  the  German  prelates  in 
such  matters  would  permit.     Archbishop  Henry,  of  Cologne,  was 


*  Guill.  Nangiac.  Contin.  aim.  1317.— RipoU  II.  169.— Wadding,  aun.  1319, 
No.  11 ;  Ejusd.  Regest.  Johann.  PP.  XXII.  No.  81.— Vitodurani  Chron.  aim.  1317 
(Eccard.  Corp.  Hist.  I.  1785-6). — Chron.  Sanpetrin.  Erfurt,  aun.  1315  (Menken. 
III.  325). — Chron.  Magdeburgens.  ann.  1317  (Meibom.  Rer.  German.  II.  337).— 
Chron.  Egmondan.  ann.  1317  (Matthaei  Analect.  IV.  161). — Mosheim  de  Beghar- 
dis,  pp.  251,  209. 

t  Mosheim,  pp.  189-90.— Martini  Append,  ad  Mosheim,  pp.  630-2,  638-40.— 
C.  1  Extrav.  Commun.  iir.  9.— Ripoll  II.  169-70.— Haupt,  Zeitschrift  fiir  K.  G. 
1885,  pp.  517,  524. 


THE    BEGHARDS   OF    COLOGNE.  373 

one  of  the  few  who  manifested  an  active  interest  in  the  matter, 
and  his  exertions  were  rewarded  with  considerable  success.  The 
Lollards  and  Beghards  no  longer  ventured  to  show  themselves 
publicly,  and  in  the  absence  of  organized  machinery  it  was  not 
easy  to  detect  them,  but  in  1322  the  archbishop  had  the  good- 
fortune  to  capture  the  most  formidable  heresiarch  of  the  region. 
Walter,  known  as  the  Lollard,  was  a  Hollander,  and  was  the  most 
active  and  successful  of  the  Beghard  missionaries.  He  was  not 
an  educated  man,  and  was  ignorant  of  Latin,  but  he  had  a  keen 
intelligence  and  ready  eloquence,  indefatigable  enthusiasm  and 
persuasiveness.  His  proselyting  labors  Avere  facilitated  by  his 
numerous  writings  in  the  vernacular,  which  were  eagerly  circu- 
lated from  hand  to  hand.  He  had  been  busy  in  Mainz,  where  he 
had  numerous  disciples,  and  came  from  there  to  Cologne,  where 
he  chanced  to  fall  into  the  archbishop's  hands.  He  made  no  secret 
of  his  belief,  refused  to  abjure,  and  welcomed  death  in  the  service 
of  his  faith.  The  severest  tortures  were  vainly  employed  to  force 
him  to  reveal  the  names  of  his  fellow-believers ;  his  constancy  was 
unalterable,  and  he  perished  in  the  flames  Avith  serene  cheerful- 
ness.* 

The  episcopal  Inquisition  was  not  as  efficient  as  the  zeal  of  the 
archbishop  might  wish,  but,  such  as  it  was,  it  pursued  its  labors 
with  indifferent  success.  In  1323  we  hear  of  a  priest  detected  in 
heresy,  who  was  duly  degraded  and  burned.  In  1325  greater 
results  followed  the  accidental  discovery  of  an  assembly  of  Beg- 
hards. The  story  told  is  the  legend  common  to  other  places,  of  a 
husband,  whose  suspicions  were  aroused,  tracking  his  wife  to  the 
nocturnal  conventicle  and  witnessing  the  sensual  orgies  which 
were  popularly  believed  to  be  customary  in  such  places.  The 
episcopal  Inquisition  was  rewarded  with  a  large  number  of  cul- 
prits, whose  trial  was  speedy  and  sure.  Those  who  would  not 
abjure,  about  fifty  in  number,  were  put  to  death — some  at  the 
stake,  and  some  drowned  in  the  Rhine,  a  novel  punishment  for 
heresy,  which  shows  how  uncertain  as  yet  were  the  dealings  with 
heretics  in  Germany.  It  is  quite  ]3robable  that  some  of  these  poor 
creatures  may  have  sought  to  shield  their  errors  under  the  repu- 
tation of  the  great  Dominican  preacher.  Master  Eckart,  and  thus 


*  Trithein.  Cliron.  Ilirsauji.  ann.  1322. 


374  GERMANY. 

brought  upon  him  the  prosecution  which  worried  him  to  death. 
It  is  possible,  also,  that  pursuit  of  this  higher  game  may  liave 
diverted  the  archbishop  from  the  chase  of  the  humbler  quarry, 
for  we  hear  of  no  further  victims  in  the  next  few  years,  though 
we  are  told  that  the  heresy  was  by  no  means  suppressed.* 

Archbishop  Henry  died  in  1331  without  further  success,  so  far 
as  the  records  show,  and  his  successor  Waleran,  Count  of  Juliers, 
took  up  the  cause  in  more  systematic  fashion.  He  endeavored  to 
organize  a  permanent  episcopal  Inquisition  by  appointing  a  commis- 
sioner whose  duty  it  was  to  inquire  after  heretics,  and  who  had 
power  to  reconcile  and  absolve  those  who  should  recant — in  fact, 
an  inquisitor  under  another  name.  The  success  of  this  attempt 
did  not  correspond  to  its  deserts.  In  March,  1335,  Waleran  was 
obliged  to  announce  that  the  evil  had  greatly  increased  in  both 
the  city  and  diocese,  and  he  called  upon  all  his  prelates  and  clergy 
to  assist  his  Inquisition  by  rigidly  enforcing  the  statutes  of  Arch- 
bishop Henry.  This  was  as  ineffective  as  the  previous  measures. 
The  heretics  were  so  bold  that  they  openly  wore  the  garments  of 
the  sect  and  followed  its  practices ;  nay,  more,  the  inquisitor  was 
either  so  negligent  or  so  corrupt  that  he  gave  absolutions  without 
requiring  conformity.  In  October  of  the  same  year,  therefore, 
the  archbishop  issued  another  pastoral  epistle,  in  which  he  pro- 
nounced aU  such  absolutions  void,  and  deplored  the  constant  spread 
of  the  heresy.f 

The  zeal  of  the  Archbishops  of  Cologne  was  not  without  imi- 
tators. Throughout  Westphalia,  Bishops  Ludwig  of  Munster, 
Gottfrid  of  Osnabruck,  Gottfrid  of  Minden,  and  Bernhard  of  Pa- 
derborn  had  been  active  in  eradicating  the  heresy  within  their 
dioceses.  In  1335  Bishop  Berthold  of  Strassburg  made  a  spas- 
modic effort  to  enforce  the  Clementines,  and  in  the  same  year 
'  there  were  some  victims  burned  in  Metz.  The  Magdeburg  Arch- 
bishop Otto  was  of  more  tolerant  temper.  In  1336  a  number  of 
"  Brethren  of  the  Lofty  Spirit "  were  detected  in  his  city,  who  did 
not  hesitate,  under  examination,  to  admit  their  behef,  which  to 


•  Gesta  Treviror.  ann.  1323  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  IV.  410).— Chron.  Egmon- 
dan.  (Matthaei  Analect.  IV.  233-4).— Vitodurani  Chron.  (Eccard.  Corp.  Histor.  I. 
1814-15). 

t  Hartzheim  IV.  436,  438. 


SPASMODIC    PERSECUTION.  375 

pious  ears  sounded  like  the  most  horrible  blasphemy ;  yet  he  lib- 
erated them  after  a  few  days'  confinement  on  their  simply  recant- 
ing their  errors  verbally.  In  this  same  year,  however,  we  have 
the  first  instance  of  a  papal  inquisitor  at  work  in  north  Germany. 
Friar  Jordan,  an  Augustinian  eremite,  held  a  commission  as  inquis- 
itor in  both  sections  of  Saxony.  He  was  not  well  versed  in  the 
inquisitorial  process,  for  when  at  Angermiinde  in  the  Uckermark 
he  came  upon  a  nest  of  Luciferans,  he  humanely  offered  them  the 
opportunity  of  canonical  purgation.  Fourteen  of  them  failed  to 
procure  the  requisite  number  of  conjurators,  and  were  duly  burned. 
From  Angermiinde  Friar  Jordan  seems  to  have  hastened  to  Erfurt, 
where  he  was  present  at  the  trial  of  a  Beghard  named  Constan- 
tine,  though  the  proceedings  were  carried  on  by  the  vicar  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Mainz.  There  was  no  desire  to  punish  the  heretic, 
who  bore  a  good  reputation  and  was  useful  as  a  writer  of  manu- 
scripts. He  asserted  himself  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  he 
would  arise  three  days  after  death,  so  there  was  ample  ground  for 
the  endeavor  humanely  made  by  his  judges  to  prove  him  insane. 
A  long  respite  was  given  him  for  this  purpose,  but  he  persistently 
declared  his  sanity,  refused  all  attempts  at  conversion,  and  per- 
ished in  the  flames.* 

When  the  effort  was  made  to  find  heretics  there  seems  to  have 
been  plenty  of  them  to  reward  the  search.  In  this  same  year, 
1336,  we  hear  of  the  discovery  in  Austria  of  a  numerous  sect  who, 
from  the  description,  were  probably  Luciferans.  The  rites  of  their 
nocturnal  subterranean  assemblies  bear  a  considerable  resemblance 
to  those  revealed  by  the  penitents  of  Conrad  of  Marburg,  showing 
how  the  tradition  was  handed  down  to  the  outbreak  of  witchcraft. 
We  are  told  that  they  had  contaminated  innumerable  souls,  but 
they  were  exterminated  by  the  free  use  of  the  stake  and  other 
cruel  torments.  The  next  year,  in  Brandenburg,  many  simple 
folk  were  seduced  into  demonolatry  by  three  evil  spirits  who  per- 
sonated the  Trinity  ;  and  though  these  were  driven  off'  by  a  Fran- 
ciscan with  the  host,  the  dupes  persisted  in  their  error,  and  pre- 
ferred burning  to  recantation.     Even  divested  of  its  supernatural 


*  Mosbeim  de  Beghardis,  pp.  273,  298-300.— Martini  Append,  ad  ^losheim, 
p.  537.— Haupt,  Zeitschrift  fur  K.  G.  1885,  p.  534.— Chron.  de  S.  Thiebaut  do 
Metz  (Calmet,  11.  Pr.  clxxj.).— Erpburdian.  Variloq.  ann.  13)0  (Menken.  II.  507). 


376  GERMANY. 

embroidery,  the  heresy,  probably  Luciferan,  must  have  been  one 
which  excited  enthusiasm  in  its  followers,  for  at  the  place  of  exe- 
cution they  declared  that  the  flames  lighted  to  consume  them 
were  golden  chariots  to  carry  them  to  heaven.  Another  instance 
of  Luciferanism  occurred  at  Salzburg,  in  1340,  when  a  priest  named 
Rudolph,  in  the  cathedral,  cast  to  the  ground  the  cup  containing 
the  blood  of  Christ,  a  sacrilege  which  he  had  previously  commit- 
ted at  Halle.  Under  examination,  he  denied  transubstantiation, 
and  asserted  the  final  salvation  of  Satan  and  his  angels.  He  was 
obstinate  to  the  last,  and  consequently  was  burned.* 

The  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit  had  by  no  means  been  sup- 
pressed. In  1339  three  aged  heresiarchs  of  the  sect  were  captured 
at  Constance  and  tried  by  the  bishop.  Disgusting  practices  of 
sensuality  were  proved  against  them,  and  they  described  their  ab- 
horrence of  the  rites  of  the  Church  in  the  most  revolting  terms. 
Their  constancy  held  good  until  they  were  brought  to  the  place 
of  execution,  when  it  failed  them ;  they  recanted,  and  were  sen- 
tenced to  imprisonment  for  life  in  a  dungeon  on  bread  and  water. 
In  1342,  at  Wiirzburg,  two  more  were  forced  to  recantation.  Per- 
secution, however,  was  spasmodic,  and  in  many  places  toleration 
practically  existed.  Thus,  in  Suabia,  in  1347,  we  are  told  that 
the  heresy  of  the  Beghards  spread  without  let  or  hindrance.  It 
was  impossible  to  eradicate  it,  even  had  there  been  efforts  made 
to  suppress  it,  which  there  were  not,  and  it  would  eventually  have 
overturned  the  Church  had  there  not  finally  arisen  theologians 
able  and  willing  to  combat  it.f 

About  this  period  flourished  Conrad  of  Montpellier,  a  canon 
of  Ratisbon,  one  of  the  most  learned  men  of  the  day,  who  wrote 
a  tract  against  the  sect.  In  spite  of  the  condemnation  uttered  by 
the  Council  of  Vienne,  he  says  it  continues  to  increase  and  multi- 
ply, as  there  are  no  prelates  found  to  oppose  it.  The  heretics 
are  mostly  ignorant  peasants  and  mechanics,  who  wander  around 
wearing  the  distinctive  garments  of  the  sect,  which  are  also  fre- 
quently used  as  a  disguise  by  Waldenses.     They  seek  hospitality  of 


•  Vitodurani  Chron.  (Eccard.  Corp.  Hist.  I.  1833-4,  1839-40).— Dalham  Con- 
cil.  Salisburg.  p.  157. 

t  Vitodurani  Chron.  (Eccard.  I.  1906-7,  1767-8).— Ullman,  Reformers  before 
the  Reformation,  Menzies'  Translation,  I.  383. 


THE    EMPIRE    AND     THE    PAPACY.  377 

the  Beguines,  whom  they  corrupt  by  persuading  them  that  man, 
through  piety,  can  become  the  equal  of  Christ.  At  Ratisbon, 
Conrad  met  one  of  these,  who  was  not  suffered  to  enjoy  security, 
for  the  bishop  arrested  him,  and,  on  his  obstinately  maintaining 
his  errors,  cast  him  in  a  dungeon,  where  he  perished.  Another, 
named  John  of  Mechlin,  preached  his  heresy  publicly  through 
upper  Germany,  where  his  eloquence  gained  him  crowds  of  fol- 
lowers, including  nobles  and  ecclesiastics,  though  Conrad  declares 
that,  on  arguing  with  him,  he  proved  to  be  utterly  ignorant. 
There  would  appear  to  have  been  equal  toleration  in  the  Nether- 
lands, for  about  this  period,  at  Brussels,  a  woman  named  Blomaert, 
who  wrote  several  treatises  on  the  Spirit  of  Liberty  and  on  Love, 
was  reverenced  as  something  more  than  human,  and  when  she 
went  to  take  the  Eucharist  she  was  said  by  her  disciples  to  be 
attended  by  two  seraphim.  She  vanquished  the  most  learned 
theologians,  until  John  of  Rysbroek  succeeded  in  confuting  her.* 

Since  the  disputed  election  of  Louis  of  Bavaria,  in  1314,  the 
relations  between  the  empire  and  the  papacy  had  been  strained. 
The  victory  of  Miihldorf,  in  1322,  which  assured  to  Louis  the  sov- 
ereignty, had  been  followed,  in  1323,  by  an  open  rupture  with 
John  XXII.,  after  which  the  strife  had  been  internecine.  Each 
declared  his  enemy  a  heretic  who  had  forfeited  aU  rights,  and  the 
interdicts  which  John  showered  over  Germany  had  been  met  by 
Louis  with  cruel  persecution  of  all  ecclesiastics  obeying  them,  wher- 
ever he  could  enforce  his  power.f     Such  a  state  of  affairs  had  not 


*  Conrad,  de  Monte  Puellar.  contra  Begebardos  (Mag.  Bib.  Pat.  XHI.  343). — 
Mosheim  de  Beghardis  p.  307. 

t  Carl  Miiller,  Der  Kampf  Ludwigs  des  Baicrn  mit  dor  romischcn  Curie,  Tu- 
bingen, 1879,  I.  234  sqq. 

When  that  bold  thinker,  Marsiglio  of  Padua,  endeavored,  for  the  benefit  of 
his  patron,  the  Emperor  Louis,  to  introduce  into  Germany  the  principles  of  the 
Roman  jurisprudence  which  had  enabled  the  French  monarchs  to  triumph  over 
their  feudatories  and  to  become  independent  of  the  Church,  he  handled  the  sub- 
ject of  the  persecution  of  heresy  in  a  manner  which  has  led  some  writers  to  re- 
gard him  as  an  advocate  of  toleration.  This  is  an  error.  It  is  true  that  he  denies 
all  Scriptural  or  apostolical  authority  for  the  temporal  punishment  of  infrac- 
tions of  the  divine  law,  and  asserts  that  Christ  alone  is  the  judge  thereof,  and  his 
punishments  are  reserved  for  the  next  world,  but  this  is  only  to  scm-vc  as  a  premise 


378  GERMANY. 

been  favorable  for  the  persecution  of  heresy  ;  it  may,  partially  at 
least,  explain  the  immunity  enjoyed  in  so  many  places  by  heretics, 
and  the  impossibility  of  introducing  the  Inquisition  in  any  form  of 
general  organization.  Though  the  papacy  assumed  that  the  impe- 
rial throne  was  vacant,  and  asserted  that,  during  such  vacancy, 
the  government  of  the  empire  devolved  upon  the  pope,  these  pre- 
tensions could  not  practically  be  made  good.  With  the  death  of 
Louis,  in  134Y,  and  the  recognition  of  his  rival,  Charles  IV. — the 
"priest's  emperor" — Eome  might  fairly  hope  that  all  obstacles 
would  be  removed ;  that  the  opposition  of  the  episcopate  to  the 
Inquisition  would  be  broken  down,  and  that  the  field  would  be 
open  for  a  persistent  and  S3''stematic  persecution,  which  would 
soon  relieve  Germany  of  the  reproach  of  toleration.  When  Clem- 
ent YI.,  in  1348,  could  paternally  reprove  the  young  emperor  for 
lack  of  dignity  in  the  fashion  of  his  garments,  which  were  too 
short  and  too  tight  for  his  imperial  station,  the  youth  could  surely 
be  relied  upon  to  obey  whatever  instructions  might  be  sent  him 
with  regard  to  the  suppression  of  heresy.  The  same  year  saw  the 
appointment  of  John  Schandeland,  doctor  of  the  Dominican  house 
at  Strassburg,  as  papal  inquisitor  for  all  Germany.* 

Scarcely,  however,  had  the  pope  and  emperor  felt  their  posi- 
tions assured,  and  preparations  had  been  thus  made  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  situation,  when  a  catastrophe  supervened  which  defied 
all  human  calculation.  The  weary  fourteenth  century  was  near- 
ing  the  end  of  its  first  half  when  Europe  was  scourged  with  a  ca- 
lamity which  might  well  seem  to  fulfil  all  that  apocalyptic  proph- 


to  his  conclusion  that  the  persecution  of  heresy  is  a  matter  of  human  law,  to  be 
ordained  and  enforced  by  the  secular  ruler.  Though  the  heretic,  he  argues,  sins 
against  the  divine  law,  he  is  punished  for  transgressing  a  human  law ;  tiie  priest 
has  nothing  to  do  with  it,  except  as  an  expert  to  determine  the  commission  of 
the  crime,  and  has  no  claim  upon  the  consequent  confiscations  (Defensor.  Pacis 
P.  II.  c.  ix.,  X. ;  P.  III.  c.  ii.  Conclus.  3,  30).  All  this  is  simply  part  of  his  gen- 
eral scheme  to  exclude  the  Church  from  control  in  secular  affairs.  Louis  was 
never  in  a  position  to  give  these  theories  practical  effect;  they  had  no  influence 
either  on  the  current  of  opinion  or  on  the  course  of  events,  and  are  only  inter- 
esting as  an  episode  in  the  development  of  political  tliought. 

*  Werunsky  Excerpta  ex  Registris  Clement.  VI.  et  Innoc.  VI.,  Innsbruck, 
1885,  pp.  8,  40,  63. — Schmidt,  Pabstliche  Urkunden  und  Regesten,  Halle,  1886, 
p.  383. 


THE    BLACK    DEATH.  379 

ets  had  threatened  of  the  vengeance  of  God  on  the  sins  of  man. 
In  1347  the  plague  known  as  the  Black  Death  invaded  Europe 
from  the  East,  making  leisurely  progress  during  1348  and  1349 
through  France,  Spain,  Hungary,  Germany,  and  England.  No 
corner  of  Europe  was  spared,  and  on  the  high  seas  it  is  said  that 
vessels  with  rich  cargoes  were  found  floating,  of  which  the  crews 
had  perished  to  the  last  man.  Doubtless  there  are  exaggerations 
in  the  contemporary  reports  which  assert  that  two  thirds  or  three 
quarters  or  five  sixths  of  the  inhabitants  of  Europe  fell  victims  to 
the  pest ;  but  Boccaccio,  as  an  eye-witness,  tells  us  that  the  mor- 
tality within  the  walls  of  Florence  from  March  to  July,  1348, 
amounted  to  one  hundred  thousand  souls ;  that  in  the  fields  the 
harvests  lay  ungathered ;  that  in  the  city  palaces  were  tenantless 
and  unguarded ;  that  parents  forsook  children  and  children  parents. 
In  Avignon  the  mortality  was  estimated  at  one  hundred  thousand ; 
Clement  VI.  shut  himself  up  in  his  apartments  in  the  sacred  pal- 
ace, where  he  built  large  fires  to  ward  off  the  pestilence,  and 
would  allow  none  to  approach  him.  In  Paris  fifty  thousand  were 
said  to  have  perished ;  in  St.  Denis  sixteen  thousand ;  in  Strass- 
burg  sixteen  thousand.  That  these  figures,  though  vague,  are  not 
improbable,  is  shown  by  the  case  of  Beziers,  where,  in  1348,  Mas- 
caro,  who  was  chosen  escudier  to  fill  a  vacancy,  records  in  his 
diary  that  all  the  consuls  were  carried  off,  all  their  esciidiers  or 
assistants,  and  all  the  clavars  or  tax-coUectors,  and  that  out  of 
every  thousand  inhabitants  only  a  hundred  escaped.  As  though 
Nature  did  not  cause  sufficient  misery,  man  contributed  his  share 
by  an  uprising  against  the  Jews.  They  were  accused  of  causing 
the  plague  by  poisoning  the  waters  and  the  pastures,  and  the  blind 
wrath  of  the  population  did  not  stop  to  consider  that  they  drank 
from  the  same  wells  as  the  Christians,  and  suffered  with  them  in 
the  pestilence.  From  the  Atlantic  to  Hungary  they  were  tortured 
and  slain  with  sword  and  fire.  At  Erfurt  three  thousand  are  said 
to  have  perished,  and  in  Bavaria  the  number  was  computed  at 
twelve  thousand.* 


*  Boccaccio,  Decamerone,  Giorn.  i — Albcrti  Argentincns.  Chron.  ann.  1348-9 
(Urstisius,  II.  147).  —  Trithem.  Chron.  llirsaug.  ann.  1248.  —  Avcntinns,  Annal. 
Boiorum  Lib.  vii.  c.  20. — Grandes  Chroniques  V.  485-6. — Guillcl.  Nangiac.  Con- 
tin,  ann.  1348-9. — Froissart,  Lib.  i.  P.  ii.  ch.  5. — Mcyeri  Auual.  Flandr.  ann. 


380  GERMANY. 

It  was  not  only  by  t-he  massacre  of  the  Jews  that  the  people 
sought  to  placate  the  wrath  of  God.  The  gregarious  enthusiasm 
of  which  we  have  seen  so  many  instances  was  by  no  means  extinct. 
In  1320  France  had  seen  another  assemblage  of  the  Pastoureaux, 
when  the  dumb  population  arose,  armed  only  with  banners,  for  the 
conquest  of  the  Holy  Land,  and  an  innumerable  multitude  wandered 
over  the  land,  peaceably  at  first,  but  subsequently  showing  their 
devotion  by  attacking  the  Jews,  and  finally  manifesting  their 
antagonism  to  the  hierarchy  by  plundering  the  ecclesiastics  and 
the  churches,  until  they  were  dispersed  with  the  sword  and  put 
out  of  the  way  with  the  halter.  In  1334  the  great  Dominican 
preacher,  Yenturino  da  Bergamo,  roused  the  population  of  Lom- 
bardy  to  so  keen  a  sense  of  the  necessity  of  propitiating  God  that 
he  organized  a  pilgrimage  to  Eome  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  par- 
dons, variously  estimated  as  consisting  of  from  ten  thousand  to 
three  millions  of  penitents.     Clothed  in  white,  with  black  cloaks 


1349. — Henrici  Rebdorff.  Chron.  ann.  1347.— Albert!  Argent,  de  Gestis  Bertold. 
(Urstisius,  II.  177). — Mascaro,  Memorias  de  Bezes,  ann.  1348.— Gesta  Treviror. 
anu.  1349.— Chron.  Cornel.  Zantfliet  (Martene  Anipl.  Coll.  V.  253^).— Erphurd. 
Variloq.  ann.  1348-9  (Menken.  II.  506-7). 

Accusations  such  as  were  brought  against  the  Jews  were  no  new  thing.  In 
1321  all  the  lepers  throughout  Languedoc  were  burned  on  the  charge  that  they 
had  been  bribed  by  the  Jews  to  poison  tlie  wells.  Doubtless  torture  was  era- 
ployed  to  obtain  the  confessions  which  were  freely  made.  The  story  went  that 
the  King  of  Granada,  finding  himself  hard  pressed  by  the  Christians,  gave  great 
sums  to  leading  Jews  to  effect  in  this  way  the  desolation  of  Christendom.  The 
Jews,  fearing  that  they  would  be  suspected,  employed  the  lepers.  Four  great 
councils  of  lepers  were  held  in  various  parts  of  Europe,  where  every  lazar-house 
was  represented  except  two  in  England ;  there  the  attempt  was  resolved  upon, 
and  the  poison  was  distributed.  King  Philippe  le  Long  was  in  Poitou  at  the 
time ;  when  the  news  was  brought  him  he  returned  precipitately  to  Paris, 
whence  he  issued  orders  for  the  seizure  of  all  the  lepers  of  the  kingdom.  Num- 
bers of  them  were  burned,  as  well  as  Jews.  At  the  royal  castle  of  Chinon,  near 
Tours,  an  immense  trench  was  dug,  and  filled  with  blazing  wood,  where,  in  a 
single  day,  one  hundred  and  sixty  Jews  were  burned.  Many  of  them,  of  either 
sex,  sang  gayly  as  though  going  to  a  wedding,  and  leajDed  into  the  flames,  while 
mothers  cast  in  their  children  for  fear  that  tliey  would  be  taken  and  baptized  by 
the  Christians  present.  The  royal  treasury  is  said  to  have  acquired  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  livres  from  the  property  of  Jews  burned  and  exiled. — 
Guillel.  Nangiac.  Contin.  ann.  1321. — Grandes  Chroniques  V.  245-51. — Chron. 
Cornel.  Zantfiiet.  ann.  1331. 


THE   FLAGELLANTS.  381 

bearing  on  one  side  a  white  dove  and  olive-branch,  and  on  the 
other  a  white  cross,  they  marched  peaceably  in  bands  to  the  holy 
city,  though  when  Venturino  went  to  John  XXII.,  in  Avignon, 
to  get  the  pardons  for  his  followers,  he  was  accused  of  heresy,  and 
had  to  undergo  a  trial  by  the  Inquisition.* 

Such  being  the  popular  tendencies  of  the  age,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  the  profound  emotions  caused  by  the  fearful  scourge  of  the 
Black  Death  found  relief  in  a  gregarious  outburst  of  penitence. 
Germany  had  suffered  less  than  the  rest  of  Europe,  only  one 
fourth  of  the  population  being  estimated  as  perishing,  but  the  re- 
ligious sensibilities  of  the  people  had  been  stirred  by  the  inter- 
dicts against  Louis  of  Bavaria,  and  the  pestilence  had  been  pre- 
ceded by  earthquakes,  which  were  portents  of  horror.  It  well 
might  seem  that  God,  wearied  with  man's  wickedness,  was  about 
to  put  an  end  to  the  human  race,  and  that  only  some  extraordi- 
nary effort  of  propitiation  could  avert  his  wrath.  In  this  state  of 
mental  tension  it  needed  but  a  touch  to  send  an  impulse  through 
the  whole  population.  Suddenly,  in  the  spring  of  1349,  the  land 
was  covered  with  bands  of  Flagellants,  like  those  whom  we  have 
seen  nearly  a  century  before,  expiating  their  sins  by  public  scourg- 
ing. Some  said  that  the  example  was  set  in  Hungary ;  others 
attributed  it  to  different  places,  but  it  responded  so  thoroughly  to 
the  vague  longings  of  the  people,  and  it  spread  so  rapidly,  that  it 
seemed  to  be  the  result  of  a  universal  consentaneous  impulse. 
All  the  proceedings,  at  least  at  first,  were  conducted  decently  and 
in  order.  The  Flagellants  marched  in  bands  of  moderate  size, 
each  under  a  leader  and  two  lieutenants.     Beggary  was  strictly 


•  Amalr.  Augerii  Hist.  Pontif.  Roman,  ann.  1330  (Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  HI.  ri. 
475,— Johanu.  S.  Victor.  Chron.  ann.  1320  (lb.  p.  485). — Chron.  Anon.  ann.  1330 
(lb.  p.  499).— Pet.  de  Herentals  ann.  1320  (lb.  p.  500).— Guillel.  Nangiac.  Contin, 
ann.  1320. — Grandes  Chroniques,  V.  345-6. — Cronaca  di  Fireiizc  ann.  1335  (Ba- 
luz.  et  Mansi  IV.  114). — Villani,  Lib.  xi.  c.  33. — Lami,  Antichita  Toscanc,  p.  017. 

Venturino  was  acquitted  of  tlie  charge  of  heresy,  but  his  free  speech  olfcndcd 
the  pope ;  he  was  forbidden  to  preach  or  hear  confessions,  and  was  sentenced  to 
live  in  retirement  at  Frisacca,  in  the  mountains  of  Ricondona  (ViUani  1.  c).  He 
died  in  134G,  at  Smyrna,  whither  he  had  gone  as  a  missionary.  He  Imd  prcac  lud 
with  wonderful  success  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe,  including  Spain,  I^ngland, 
and  Greece.  His  face,  when  preaching,  shone  with  celestial  liglit,  and  his  mir- 
acles were  numerous  (Raynald.  ann.  1340,  No.  70). 


cg2  GERMANY. 

prohibited,  and  no  one  was  admitted  to  feUowship  who  would  not 
promise  obedience  to  the  captain,  and  who  had  not  money  to  de- 
fray his  own  expenses,  estimated  at  four  pfennige  per  diem,  though 
the  hospitahty  universally  offered  in  the  tov.^ns  through  which 
they  passed  was  freely  accepted  to  the  extent  of  lodging  and 
meals ;  but  two  nights  were  never  to  be  spent  in  the  same  place. 
Monks  and  priests,  nobles  and  peasants,  women  and  children  were 
marshalled  together  in  common  contrition  to  placate  an  offended 
God.     They  chanted  rude  hymns — 

"  Nii  tretent  hevzu  die  bussen  wellen. 
Fliehen  wir  die  heissen  hellen. 
Lucifer  ist  ein  bose  geselle,"  etc. — 

and  scourged  themselves  at  stated  times,  the  men  stripping  to  the 
waist  and  using  a  scourge  knotted  with  four  iron  points,  so  lustily 
laid  on  that  an  eye-witness  says  that  he  had  seen  two  jerks  requi- 
site to  disengage  the  point  from  the  flesh.  They  taught  that 
this  exercise,  continued  for  thirty-three  days  and  a  half,  washed 
from  the  soul  all  taint  of  sin,  and  rendered  the  penitent  pure  as 
at  birth. 

From  Poland  to  the  Khine  the  processions  of  Flagellants  met 
with  little  opposition,  except  in  a  few  towns,  such  as  Erfurt,  where 
the  magistrates  prohibited  their  entrance,  and  in  the  province  of 
Magdeburg,  where  Archbishop  Otho  suppressed  them.  They 
spread  through  Holland  and  Flanders,  but  when  they  invaded 
France,  Philippe  de  Valois  interfered,  and  they  penetrated  no 
farther  than  Troyes.  The  guardians  of  public  order,  indeed,  could 
not  look  without  dread  upon  such  a  popular  demonstration,  which 
by  organization  might  become  dangerous.  When  the  Flagellants 
of  Strassburg  proposed  to  form  a  permanent  confraternity,  Charles 
TV.,  who  was  in  that  city,  peremptorily  forbade  it.  Already  dan- 
gerous characters  were  attracted  to  the  wandering  bands ;  in 
many  places  their  zeal  had  led  to  the  merciless  persecution  of  the 
Jews,  and  there  were  not  lacking  sjrmptoms  of  a  significant  an- 
tagonism to  the  Church,  manifesting  itself  in  attacks  upon  ecclesi- 
astics and  clerical  property.  The  Church,  in  fact,  looked  askance 
upon  a  religious  manifestation  not  of  her  prescription,  and  her 
susceptibilities  were  not  soothed  by  the  daily  reading,  amid  the 
flagellation,  of  a  letter  brought  by  an  angel  to  the  Church  of  St. 


FLAGELLATION    A    HERESY.  383 

Peter,  in  Jerusalem,  relating  that  God,  incensed  at  the  non-ob- 
servance of  Sundays  and  Fridays,  had  scourged  Christendom,  and 
would  have  destroyed  the  world  but  for  the  intercession  of  the 
angels  and  the  Virgin.  This  was  accompanied  by  a  message  that 
general  flagellation  for  thirty-three  and  a  half  days  would  cause 
him  to  lay  aside  his  wrath.  There  was  danger,  indeed,  of  open 
antagonism  and  insubordination.  The  Mendicants,  who  endeav- 
ored to  discourage  this  independent  popular  penitence,  incurred 
the  bitterest  hostility,  which  had  no  scruple  in  finding  expression. 
At  Tournay  the  orator  of  the  Flagellants  denounced  them  as  scor- 
pions and  antichrists,  and  on  the  borders  of  Misnia  two  Domini- 
cans, who  endeavored  to  reason  with  a  band  of  Flagellants,  were 
set  upon  with  stones ;  one  had  sufficient  agiUty  to  escape,  but  the 
other  was  lapidated  to  death.* 

When  in  Basle  about  a  hundred  of  the  principal  citizens  organ- 
ized themselves  into  a  confraternity,  and  made  a  flagellating  pil- 
grimage to  Avignon,  they  excited  great  admiration  among  the 
citizens,  and  most  of  the  cardinals  were  disposed  to  think  highly 
of  the  new  penitential  discipline.  Clement  VI.  penetrated  deeper 
below  the  surface,  and  recognized  the  danger  to  the  Church  of 
allowing  irregular  and  independent  manifestations  of  zeal,  and  of 
permitting  unauthorized  associations  and  congregations  to  form 
themselves.  Moreover,  what  was  to  become  of  the  most  service- 
able and  profitable  function  of  the  Holy  See  in  administering  the 
treasures  of  salvation,  if  men  could  cleanse  themselves  of  sin  by 
self -prescribed  and  self-inflicted  penance?  The  movement  bore 
within  it  the  germ  of  revolution,  as  threatening  and  as  dangerous 
as  that  of  the  Poor  Men  of  Lyons,  or  of  any  of  the  sects  which  had 
thus  far  been  successfully  combated,  and  self-preservation  re- 
quired its  prompt  suppression  at  any  cost.  From  the  standpoint 
of  worldly  wisdom  this  reasoning  was  unanswerable,  but  members 


*  Erphurdian.  Variloq.  ann.  1349. — Chron.  Magdeburgens.  ann.  1348  (Mei- 
bom.  Rer.  German.  II.  342). — Albert!  Argentinens.  Chron.  ann.  1349. — Closener's 
Chronik  (Chron.  der  deutschen  Stadte,  YIII.  105  sqq.). — Tritheni.  Chron.  Hir- 
Baug.  ann.  1348. — Hermann.  Corneri  Cliron.  ann.  1350. — Guillel.  Nangiac.  Contin. 
ann.  1349. — Grandes  Clironiques,  V.  492-3. — Froissart,  Liv.  I.  P.  ii.  ch.  5. — Gesta 
Treviror.  ann.  1349. — Meyeri  Annal.  Flandris  ann.  1349. — Chron.  .^gid.  Li 
Muisis  (De  Smet,  Corp.  Chron.  Flandr.  II.  349-51). — Henr.  Rebdorff.  Anna!,  ann. 
1347. 


384  GERMAN  Y. 

of  the  Sacred  College  were  obstinate.  They  prevailed  upon  Clem- 
ent not  to  execute  his  first  intention  of  casting  the  Flagellants 
into  prison,  and  the  discussion  on  the  policy  to  be  pursued  must 
have  been  protracted,  for  it  was  not  until  October  20,  1349,  that 
the  papal  bull  of  condemnation  was  issued.  This  took  the  ground 
that  it  was  a  disregard  of  the  power  of  the  keys  and  a  contempt 
of  Church  disciphne  for  these  new  and  unauthorized  associations 
to  wear  distinctive  garments,  to  form  assemblies  governed  by  self- 
dictated  statutes,  and  performing  acts  contrary  to  received  observ- 
ances. Allusion  was  made  to  the  cruelties  exercised  on  the  Jews, 
and  the  invasion  of  ecclesiastical  property  and  jurisdiction.  All 
prelates  were  ordered  to  suppress  them  forthwith ;  those  who  re- 
fused obedience  were  to  be  imprisoned  until  further  orders,  and 
the  aid  of  the  secular  arm  was  to  be  called  upon  if  necessary.* 

Clement  was  correct  in  his  anticipation  of  the  effects  of  the 
new  discipline  on  the  minds  of  the  faithful.  When  the  subject 
came  up  for  discussion  at  the  Council  of  Constance,  in  1417,  and 
San  Vicente  Ferrer  was  inclined  to  regard  it  with  favor,  his  lofty 
reputation  and  his  services  in  procuring  the  abandonment  of  Peter 
of  Luna  (Benedict  XIII.)  by  Spain  rendered  it  impossible  not  to 
treat  him  with  respect,  but  Gerson  took  him  delicately  to  task  and 
wrote  a  tract  to  show  the  evils  resulting  from  the  practice.  Ex- 
perience, he  said,  had  shown  that  the  members  of  the  sect  of 
Flagellants  were  led  to  look  with  contempt  on  sacramental  con- 
fession and  the  sacrament  of  penitence,  for  they  exalted  their  pe- 
cuhar  form  of  penance,  not  only  over  that  prescribed  by  the 
Church,  but  even  over  martyrdom,  because  they  shed  their  own 
blood,  while  the  blood  of  martyrs  was  shed  by  others.  This  led 
directly  to  insubordination  and  to  destroying  the  reverence  due  to 
the  Church,  and  was  the  fruitful  parent  of  heresy.  From  some 
of  his  allusions,  indeed,  we  may  gather  that  it  frequently  caused 
collisions  between  the  people  and  the  priesthood,  in  which  the 
latter  were  apt  to  be  roughly  handled.f 

This  shows  how  inefficient  had  been  Clement's  prohibition,  and 
how  obstinately  the  practice  had  maintained  itself  until  it  had 


*  Alberti  Argentinens.  Chron.  ann.  1349. — Trithem.  Chron.  Hirsaug.  ann. 
1348. 

t  Von  der  Hardt.  T.  HI.  pp.  95-105. 


THE    FLAGELLANTS    PERSECUTED.  385 

risen  to  the  rank  of  a  new  heresy.  When  his  bull  was  received 
by  the  German  prelates  they  full}^  comprehended  the  dangers 
which  it  sought  to  avert,  and  addressed  themselves  vigorously  to 
its  enforcement.  The  Flagellants  were  denounced  from  the  pul- 
pit as  an  impious  sect,  condemned  by  the  Holy  See.  Those  who 
would  humbly  return  to  the  Church  would  be  received  to  mercy, 
while  the  obdurate  would  be  made  to  experience  the  full  rigor  of 
the  canons.  This  thinned  the  ranks  considerably,  but  there  were 
enough  of  persistent  ones  to  furnish  a  new  harvest  of  martyrs. 
Many  were  executed,  or  exposed  to  various  forms  of  torment,  and 
not  a  few  rotted  to  death  in  the  dungeons  in  which  they  were 
thrown.  Even  ecclesiastics  could  not  be  prevented  from  adher- 
ing to  the  obnoxious  sect.  William  of  Gennep,  Archbishop  of 
Cologne,  in  a  provincial  council  excommunicated  all  clerks  who 
joined  the  Flagellants ;  yet  this  was  so  completely  disregarded  that 
in  his  vernal  synod  of  1353  he  was  obliged  to  order  all  deans  and 
rectors  of  churches  to  assemble  their  chapters,  read  his  letters,  and 
make  provision  for  the  public  excommunication  by  name  of  all 
the  disobedient,  to  be  followed  within  a  fortnight  by  their  sus- 
pension. We  shall  see  hereafter  with  what  persistent  obstinacy 
the  outbreak  of  flagellation  recurred  from  time  to  time,  and  how 
it  was  regarded  as  heresy,  pure  and  simple,  by  the  Church.  Mean- 
while, it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit 
took  full  advantage  of  the  excitement  prevailing  in  men's  minds, 
and  of  the  upturning  which  resulted,  both  spiritually  and  socially. 
When  the  bands  of  Flagellants  first  made  their  appearance  they 
were  joined  in  many  places,  we  are  told,  by  the  heretics  known  as 
Lollards,  Beghards,  and  Cellites.  Involved  in  common  persecu- 
tion, they  grew  to  have  common  interests,  and  they  became  too 
intimately  associated  together  not  to  lend  each  other  mutual 
support.* 

Thus  far  the  faith  had  not  gained  the  advantage  which  had  nat- 
urally been  expected  to  follow  the  undisputed  domination  of  the 
pious  Charles  lY.  At  the  end  of  1352  Innocent  VI.  ascended  the 
papal  throne  and  promptly  repeated  the  attempt  to  introduce  the 
papal  Inquisition  in  Germany  by  renewing,  in  July,  1353,  the  com- 


*  Trithem.  Chron.  Hirsaug.  ann.  1348.— Hartzhcim  IV.  471-2.— Mcycri  Auu. 
Flandr.  ann.  1349, 
II.— 25 


386  G  E  U  JI A  N  Y. 

mission  as  inquisitor  of  Friar  John  Schandeland,  and  writing  ear- 
nestly to  the  German  prelates  to  lend  him  all  assistance.  The  pes- 
tiferous madness  of  the  JBeghards,  he  said,  was  blazing  forth  afresh, 
and  efforts  were  requisite  for  its  suppression.  As  in  their  dioceses 
the  Inquisition  had  no  prisons  of  its  own,  they  were  required  to 
give  it  the  free  use  of  the  episcopal  jails.  We  are  told  in  general 
terms  that  Friar  John  was  energetic  and  successful,  but  no  records 
remain  to  prove  his  activity  or  its  results,  and  it  is  fair  to  conclude 
that  the  bishops,  as  usual,  gave  him  the  cold  shoulder.  There  is 
no  proof  even  that  he  was  concerned  in  the  condemnation  of  the 
Beghard  heresiarch  Berthold  von  Kohrback,  who  in  1356  expiated 
his  heresy  in  the  flames.  Berthold  had  previously  been  caught  in 
Wiirzburg,  and  had  recanted  through  dread  of  the  stake.  He  ought 
to  have  been  imprisoned  for  life,  but  the  German  spiritual  courts,  as 
usual,  were  unversed  in  the  penalties  for  heresy,  and  he  was  allowed 
to  go  free,  when  he  secretly  made  his  way  to  Speier.  There  he  was 
successful  in  propagating  his  doctrines  until  he  was  again  arrested. 
As  a  relapsed  heretic,  under  the  rules  of  the  Inquisition,  there  was 
no  mercy  for  him,  but  the  rules  were  imperfectly  understood  in 
Germany,  and  again  he  was  treated  more  leniently  than  the  canons 
allowed,  and  was  offered  reconciliation.  This  time  his  courage 
did  not  fail  him.  "  My  faith,"  he  said,  "  is  the  gift  of  God,  and  I 
neither  ought  nor  wish  to  reject  his  grace."  That  Innocent's  at- 
tempt to  introduce  the  Inquisition  proved  a  failure  may  be  gath- 
ered from  the  action  of  William  of  Gennep,  in  his  vernal  synod  of 
Cologne  in  1357.  While  deploring  the  increase  of  the  pernicious 
sect  of  Beghards,  which  threatens  to  infect  his  whole  city  and  dio- 
cese, he  makes  no  allusion  whatever  to  the  papal  Inquisition  and 
the  canons.  The  measures  of  his  predecessors  are  referred  to,  in 
accordance  with  which  all  parish  priests  are  directed  to  proceed 
against  the  heretics,  under  threat  of  prosecution  for  remissness,  and 
excommunication  is  pronounced  against  those  who  aid  the  Beg- 
hards with  alms.* 

Undeterred  by  ill-success  the  effort  was  renewed.  From  a 
MS.  sentence  of  June  6, 1366,  printed  by  Mosheim,  we  learn  that 
the  Dominican,  Henry  de  Agro,  was  at  that  time  commissioned  as 


*  Raynald,  aun.  1353,  No.  26,  27.— Trithem.  Cbron.  Hirsaug.  arm.  1356.— 
Nuucloii  Cluou.  aun.  1356. — Hartzheim  IV.  483. 


WALTER    KERLINGER.  387 

inquisitor  of  the  province  of  Mainz  and  the  diocese  of  Bamberg 
and  Basle,  the  latter  of  which  belonged  to  the  province  of  Besan- 
§on.  He  was  conducting  an  active  inquisition  in  the  diocese  of 
Strassburg,  whose  bishop,  John  of  Luxembourg,  had  gratified 
episcopal  jealousy  by  not  allowing  him  to  perform  his  office  inde- 
pendently, but  had  adjoined  to  him  his  vicar,  Tristram,  who  acted 
in  the  matter  not  simply  as  representing  the  bishop  in  the  sen- 
tence, but  as  co-inquisitor.  According  to  the  rules  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, the  judgment  was  rendered  in  an  assembly  of  experts.  The 
victim  in  this  case  was  a  woman,  Metza  von  Westhoven,  a  Beguine, 
who  had  been  tried  and  who  had  abjured  in  the  persecution  under 
Bishop  John  of  Zurich,  nearly  half  a  century  before.  As  a  re- 
lapsed heretic  there  was  no  pardon  for  her,  and  she  was  duly  re- 
laxed.* 

Thus  far  whatever  hopes  might  have  been  based  upon  the  zeal 
of  Charles  IV.  had  not  been  realized.  He  seems  to  have  taken  no 
part  in  the  efforts  of  the  papacy,  and  without  the  imperial  exe- 
quatur the  commissions  issued  to  inquisitors  had  but  moderate 
chance  of  enjoying  the  respect  and  obedience  of  the  prelates.  In 
1367  Urban  Y.  returned  to  the  work  by  commissioning  two  in- 
quisitors for  Germany,  the  Dominicans  Louis  of  Willenberg  and 
"Walter  Kerlinger,  with  powers  to  appoint  vicars.  The  Beghards 
were  the  only  heretics  alluded  to  as  the  object  of  their  labors ; 
prelates  and  magistrates  were  ordered  to  lend  their  efficient  as- 
sistance and  to  place  all  prisons  at  their  dis])osal  until  tlie  German 
Inquisition  should  have  such  places  of  its  own.  This  was  the 
most  comprehensive  measure  as  yet  taken  for  the  organization  of 
the  Holy  Office  in  Germany,  and  it  proved  the  entering  wedge, 
though  at  first  Charles  IV.  does  not  seem  to  have  responded.  The 
choice  of  inquisitors  was  shrewd.  Of  Friar  Louis  we  hear  little, 
but  Friar  Walter  (variously  named  Kerling,  Kerlinger,  Krelinger, 
and  Keslinger)  was  a  man  of  influence,  a  chaplain  and  favorite  of 
the  emperor,  who  had  the  temper  of  a  persecutor  and  the  ()])portu- 
nity  and  ambition  to  magnify  his  office.  In  1369  he  became  Do- 
minican Provincial  of  Saxony,  and  continued  to  pei'form  the  dupli- 
cate functions  until  his  death,  in  1373.  He  lost  no  time  in  getting 
to  work,  for  in  1368  we  hear  of  a  Beghard  burned  in  Erfurt,  and 


Mosheim  de  Beghartlis,  pp.  333-4. 


388  GERMANY. 

to  his  unwearied  exertions  is  generally  attributed  the  temporary 
suppression  of  the  sect.* 

Still  there  was  at  first  no  appearance  of  any  hearty  support 
from  either  the  spiritual  or  temporal  potentates  of  Germany,  and 
without  this  the  business  of  persecution  could  only  languish. 
When,  however,  the  emperor  made  his  Italian  expedition,  in  1368, 
the  opportunity  was  utilized  to  arouse  him  to  a  sense  of  his  neg- 
lected duties.  It  was  rare  indeed  for  an  emperor  to  have  the 
cordial  support  of  the  papacy,  and  we  may  reasonably  assume  that 
Charles  was  made  to  see  that  through  their  union  the  Inquisition 
might  be  rendered  serviceable  to  both  in  breaking  down  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  great  prince-bishops.  Thus  it  happened  that  when 
that  institution  was  falling  into  desuetude  in  the  lands  of  its  birth, 
it  was  for  the  first  time  regularly  organized  in  Germany  and  given 
a  substantive  existence.  From  Lucca,  on  June  9  and  10, 1369,  the 
emperor  issued  two  edicts  which  excel  aU  previous  legislation  in 
the  unexampled  support  accorded  to  inquisitors — the  extravagance 
of  their  provisions  probably  furnishing  a  measure  of  the  opposition 
to  be  overcome.  All  prelates,  princes,  and  magistrates  are  ordered 
to  expel  and  treat  as  outlaws  the  sect  of  Beghards  and  Beguines, 
commonly  known  as  Wilge  Armen  or  Conventschwestej'n^  who  beg 
with  the  vainly  prohibited  formula  "  Brod  durch  Gott  .^"  At  the 
command  of  Walter  Kerlinger  and  his  vicars  or  other  inquisitors, 
all  who  give  alms  to  the  proscribed  class  shall  be  arrested  and  so 
punished  as  to  serve  as  a  terror  to  others.  With  special  signifi- 
cance the  prelates  are  addressed  and  commanded  to  use  their 
powers  for  the  extermination  of  heresy  ;  in  the  strongest  language, 
and  under  threats  of  condign  punishment  to  be  visited  on  them  in 
person  and  on  their  temporalities,  they  are  ordered  to  obey  with 
zeal  the  commands  of  Friar  Kerlinger,  his  vicars,  and  aU  other  in- 
quisitors as  to  the  arrest  and  safekeeping  of  heretics ;  they  are  to 
render  all  possible  aid  to  the  inquisitors,  to  receive  and  treat  them 
kindly  and  courteously,  and  furnish  them  with  guards  in  their 
movements.  Moreover,  all  inquisitors  are  taken  under  the  special 
imperial  favor  and  protection.  All  the  powers,  privileges,  liberties, 
and  immunities  granted  to  them  by  preceding  emperors  or  by  the 

*  Mosheira  de  Beghardis,  pp.  335-7. — Chrou.  Magdeburg.  (Leibnitii  Scriptt. 
R.  Brunsv.  III.  749).— Herm.  Korneri  Cliron.  (Eccard.  II.  1113).— Cat.  Proedic. 
Prov.  Saxon.  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VI.  344). — Bohmer,  Regest.  Karl  IV.  No.  4761. 


THE    INQUISITION    ORGANIZED.  389 

rulers  of  any  other  land  are  conferred  upon  them,  and  confirmed, 
notwithstanding  an}'^  la\ys  or  customs  to  the  contrary.  To  enforce 
these  privileges,  two  dukes  (Saxony  and  Brunswick),  two  counts 
(Schwartzenberg  and  Nassau),  and  two  knights  (Hanstein  and  Wit' 
zeleyeven)  are  appointed  conservators  and  guardians,  with  instruc- 
tions to  act  whenever  complaint  is  made  to  them  by  the  inquisi- 
tors. They  shall  see  that  one  third  of  the  confiscations  of  heretic 
Beghards  and  Beguines  are  handed  over  to  the  Inquisition,  and 
shall  proceed  directly  and  fearlessly,  without  appeal,  against  any 
one  impeding  or  molesting  it  in  any  manner,  making  examples  of 
them,  both  in  person  and  property.  Any  contravention  of  the 
edict  shall  entail  a  mulct  of  one  hundred  marks,  one  half  payable 
to  the  fisc  and  one  half  to  the  party  injured.  Besides  this,  any 
one  impeding  or  molesting  any  of  the  inquisitors  or  their  agents, 
directly  or  indirectly,  openly  or  secretly,  is  declared  punishable 
with  confiscation  of  all  property  for  the  benefit  of  the  imperial 
treasury,  and  deprivation  of  all  honors,  dignities,  privileges,  and 
immunities.* 

These  portentous  edicts  provided  for  the  personnel  of  the  In- 
quisition and  the  exercise  of  its  powers,  but  to  render  it  a  per- 
manent institution  there  were  stiU  lacking  houses  in  which  it  could 
hold  its  tribunals,  and  prisons  in  which  to  keep  its  captives.  The 
imperial  resources  were  not  adequate  to  this,  and  nothing  was  to 
be  expected  from  the  piety  of  princes  and  prelates.  Somebody 
must  be  despoiled  for  its  benefit — somebody  too  defenceless  to  re- 
sist, yet  possessed  of  property  sufficient  to  be  tempting.  These 
conditions  were  exactly  filled  by  the  orthodox  Beghards  and  Be- 
guines, who,  since  their  temporary  persecution  after  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Clementines,  had  continued  to  prosper  and  to  enjoy  the 
donations  of  the  pious.  They  were  accordingly  marked  as  the 
victims,  and,  a  week  after  the  issue  of  the  edicts  just  described, 
another  was  published  in  which  these  poor  creatures  are  described 
as  cultivating  a  sacrilegious  poverty,  which  they  assert  to  be  the 
most  perfect  form  of  life,  and  their  communities,  if  left  undisturbed, 
will  become  seminaries  of  error.  Moreover,  the  Inquisition  has  no 
house,  domicile,  or  strong  tower  for  the  detention  of  the  accused 
and  for  the  perpetual  incarceration  of  those  who  abjure,  whereby 


Moshcim  de  Beghardis  pp.  343-55. 


890  GERMANY. 

many  heretics  remain  unpunished  and  the  seed  of  evil  is  scat- 
tered. Therefore  the  houses  of  the  Beghards  are  given  to  the 
Inquisition  to  be  converted  into  prisons ;  those  of  the  l>eguines 
are  ordered  to  be  sold  and  the  proceeds  divided  into  thirds,  one 
part  being  assigned  to  repairing  roads  and  the  walls  of  the  towns, 
another  to  be  given  to  inquisitors,  to  be  expended  on  pious  uses, 
among  which  is  included  the  maintenance  of  prisoners.  But  three 
days'  notice  is  given  to  the  victims  prior  to  expulsion  from  their 
homes.* 

If  the  Inquisition  could  have  been  permanently  established  in 
Germany  this  unscrupulous  measure  would  have  accomphshed  the 
object.  "What  between  the  imperial  favor  and  Kerhnger's  energy 
it  at  last  had  a  fair  start.  The  last  edict  alludes  to  two  additional 
inquisitors  vyhom  Kerhnger  was  authorized  to  appoint  and  to  his 
successful  labors,  by  which  the  heretic  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit 
had  been  completely  destroyed  in  the  provinces  of  Magdeburg  and 
Bremen,  and  in  Thuringia,  Hesse,  Saxony,  and  elsewhere.  Proba- 
bly this  is  exaggerated,  but  we  learn  from  other  sources  that  Ker- 
linger  was  zealously  active  and  that  his  labors  were  rewarded  with 
success.  In  Magdeburg  and  Erfurt  he  burned  a  number  of  here- 
tics and  forced  the  rest  to  outward  conformity  or  to  flight.  We 
hear  of  him  at  Nordhausen  in  1369,  where  he  captured  forty  Beg- 
hards ;  of  these  seven  were  obdurate  and  were  burned,  and  the  rest 
abjured  and  accepted  penance.  This  is  probably  a  fair  example 
of  his  work,  and  we  may  believe  Gregory  XI.  when,  in  1372,  he 
says  that  the  Inquisition  had  destroyed  heres}^  and  heretics  in  the 
central  provinces  and  driven  them  to  the  outlying  districts  of 
Brabant,  Holland,  Stettin,  Breslau,  and  Silesia,  where  they  are 
gathered  in  such  multitudes  that  they  hope  to  be  able  to  maintain 
themselves ;  wherefore  he  earnestly  calls  upon  the  prelates  and 
nobles  to  bring  the  good  work  to  an  end  by  efficiently  supporting 
the  Holy  Office  in  its  final  labors.  Apparently  Kerlinger  had  not 
been  anxious  to  divide  his  authority  by  exercising  his  power  to 
appoint  two  additional  colleagues,  and  Gregory  now  intervened  to 
reUeve  him  of  this  duty  and  place  the  German  Inquisition  on  a 

•  Mosheim  de  Beghardis  pp.  356-62. — Mosbeira  suggests  that  the  distinction 
between  the  bouses  of  the  Beghards  and  the  Beguincs  jjrobably  arose  from  the 
former  being  larger  and  situated  in  the  cities,  the  latter  smaller,  more  numerous, 
and  scattered  among  the  towns  and  villages. 


THE    INQUISITION    ORGANIZED.  391 

permanent  footing  by  assimilating  its  organization  to  that  of  the 
institution  elsewhere.  He  increased  the  number  of  inquisitors  to 
five  and  placed  their  appointment  and  removal  in  the  hands  of  the 
Dominican  master  and  provincial,  or  either  of  them.  Kerlinger 
and  Louis,  however,  were  to  remain  as  two  of  the  five,  and  no 
power,  whether  imperial  or  episcopal,  should  have  authority  to  in- 
terfere with  the  free  exercise  of  their  functions.* 

A  further  extension  of  the  power  of  the  Inquisition  granted  by 
Charles  lY.  was  of  no  great  importance  at  the  time,  but  has  the 
highest  interest  to  us  as  the  first  indication  of  what  was  to  come. 
A  leading  feature  of  the  Beghard  propaganda  was  the  circulation 
among  the  laity  of  written  tracts  and  devotional  works.  Com- 
posed in  the  vernacular,  they  reached  a  class  which  was  not  wholly 
illiterate  and  yet  was  unable  to  profit  by  the  orthodox  works  of 
which  Latin  was  the  customary  vehicle.  For  the  suppression  of 
this  effective  method  of  missionary  work  the  Inquisition  was  in- 
trusted with  a  censorship  of  literature,  to  which  further  reference 
will  be  made  hereafter.  Less  interesting  to  us,  but  probably 
more  important  at  the  time,  was  the  permission  granted  to  the 
inquisitors  to  appoint  notaries.  It  will  be  remembered  how  jeal- 
ously these  appointments  were  guarded,  and  this  concession  was 
evidently  looked  upon  as  a  special  favor.  The  inquisitors  ap- 
parently had  been  trammelled  by  the  lack  of  notaries,  and  they 
were  now  authorized  to  appoint  one  in  each  diocese,  and  to  re- 
place him  when  removed  by  death  or  disability.f 

As  regards  the  seizure  of  the  Beguinages,  it  was  ruthlessly 
carried  out  by  Kerlinger.  Those  of  Miihlhausen  had  been  very 
flourishing,  and  on  February  16,  1370,  four  of  them  were  deliv- 
ered by  him  to  the  magistrates  to  be  converted  to  public  uses — 
probably  the  city's  share  of  the  plunder.  It  would  seem,  how- 
ever, that  obstacles  were  thrown  in  his  way.  The  jealousy  of  the 
bishops  was  not  hkely  to  look  with  favor  upon  this  permanent 
establishment  of  the  Inquisition  in  their  dioceses,  with  prisons 
and  landed  property  that  would  render  it  independent.     Mosheim 

*  Chron.  Magdeburg.  (Leibnitii  S.  R.  Brunsv.  III.  749).— Herm.  Corneri  Chron. 
(Eccard.  Corp.  Hist.  II.  1113-4).— Raynald.  ann.  1372,  No.  34.— RipoU  II.  275.— 
Mosheim  de  Begliardis  pp.  380-3. 

t  Mosheim  de  Beghardis  pp.  368-74,  378-9.— Bohmer,  Regest.  Karl.  IV.  No. 
4761 


392  GERMANY. 

judiciously  suggests  that  as  tlicse  houses  were  benevolent  gifts 
for  pious  uses  tiie  bishops  could  assert  them  to  be  under  their 
jurisdiction  and  not  subject  to  an  imperial  edict ;  nobles  and  citi- 
zens, moreover,  had  been  trained  to  regard  their  inoffensive  in- 
mates with  favor,  and  were  not  eager  to  share  in  the  spoils. 
Whatever  may  have  been  their  motives,  Kerlinger  could  not  have 
found  the  way  open  to  the  general  confiscation  that  he  desired. 
In  1371  he  was  obliged  to  petition  Gregory  XI.,  reciting  the  ex- 
istence of  heretics  called  Beghards  and  Beguines,  and  the  imperial 
edict  confiscating  their  conventicles,  the  confirmation  of  which 
he  desired.  There  Avas  nothing  to  lead  Gregory  to  suppose  that 
there  was  in  this  anything  but  the  well-understood  confiscation 
of  heretical  property,  and  he  willingly  gave  the  desired  confirma- 
tion.* 

Thus,  after  a  desultory  struggle  lasting  for  nearly  a  century 
and  a  half,  the  Inquisition  finally  established  itself  in  Germany  as 
an  organized  body.  For  a  while,  at  least,  the  ofiice  of  inquisitor 
was  kept  regularly  filled  as  vacancies  occurred.  When  Kerlinger 
died,  in  1373,  his  successor  in  the  Provincialate  of  Saxony,  Her- 
mann Hetstede,  is  qualified  as  being  an  inquisitor,  and  the  same 
title  is  given  to  Henry  Albert,  who  followed  Hetstede  in  1376. 
The  Holy  Ofiice  seems  to  have  been  almost  exclusively  in  Domin- 
ican hands,  and  we  rarely  hear  of  its  functions  as  performed  by 
Franciscans.  The  good  work  proceeded  apace.  In  1372  Kerlin- 
ger had  a  heretic  of  higher  rank  than  usual  to  deal  with  in  the 
person  of  Albert,  Bishop  of  Ilalberstadt,  who  pubhcly  taught 
fatalistic  doctrines — possibly  some  form  of  predestination  such  as 
Wicklifi"  was  commencing  to  formulate.  This  resulted  in  a  great 
decrease  in  pious  works,  for  it  struck  at  the  root  of  the  invocation 
of  saints,  masses  for  the  dead,  and  liberality  to  the  clergy,  and 
the  consequences  threatened  to  be  so  serious  that  Gregory  XI. 
ordered  Kerlinger,  together  with  Hervord,  Provost  of  Erfurt,  and 
an  Augustinian  named  Rodolph,  to  force  the  bishop  to  an  abjura- 
tion, and  in  case  of  disobedience  to  transmit  him  to  the  papal 
court  for  judgment.  In  the  same  year  Gregory  recounts  with 
much  satisfaction  the  success  of  the  inquisitors  in  driving  the  Beg- 


*  Mosheim  de  Beghardis  pp.  364-66.— Martini  Append,  ad  Mosheim  pp. 
541-2. 


FLAGELLANTS.— THE    DANCING    MANIA.  393 

hards  out  of  central  and  northern  Germany ;  he  stimulated  the 
emperor  to  support  tlieir  labors  with  fresh  zeal,  and  sent  encycU- 
cals  to  the  princes,  prelates,  and  magistrates,  commanding  them 
to  use  ever}'-  effort  to  render  the  work  complete,  by  exterminating 
the  heretics  in  the  regions  where  they  had  taken  refuge.  Early 
in  the  next  year  he  commissioned  the  Dominican,  John  of  Boland, 
an  imperial  chaplain,  as  inquisitor  in  the  dioceses  of  Treves,  Co- 
logne, and  Liege,  the  Beghards  and  Beguines  being  the  objects 
specially  indicated ;  and  Charles  hastened  to  invest  him  with  all 
the  powers  specified  in  his  letters  of  1369,  ordering  the  Dukes  of 
Luxembourg,  Limburg,  Brabant,  and  Juliers,  the  Princes  of  Mons 
and  Cleves,  and  the  Counts  of  La  Marck,  Kirchberg,  and  Span- 
helm  to  serve  as  conservators  and  guardians  of  the  edict.* 

Although  the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit  were  the  chief  ob- 
jects of  all  this  inquisitorial  activity,  the  Flagellants  were  not 
neglected.  In  1361  a  demonstration  of  these  enthusiasts  in  far-off 
Naples  awakened  the  solicitude  of  Innocent  YI.  In  1369  we  hear 
of  an  outbreak  of  women  coming  from  Hungary,  which  was  sum- 
marily suppressed  in  Saxony.  In  1372  Flagellants  reapjoeared  in 
various  parts  of  Germany,  asserting  the  peculiar  efficacy  of  their 
penance  as  replacing  the  sacraments  of  the  Church,  so  that  Greg- 
ory XL  felt  it  necessary  to  direct  the  inquisitors  to  exterminate 
them.  In  13Y3  and  137-1  this  irrepressible  tendenc}^  took  a  new 
shape,  known  as  the  Dancing  Mania,  which  broke  out  at  the  con- 
secration of  a  church  in  Aix-la-Chapelle.  Bands  of  both  sexes, 
mostly  consisting  of  poor  and  simple  folk,  poured  into  Flanders 
from  the  Rhinelands,  dancing  and  singing  as  though  possessed  by 
the  Furies.  Under  intense  spiritual  excitement  the  performer 
would  leap  and  dance  until  he  fell  to  earth  with  convulsions,  when 
his  comrades  Avould  revive  him  by  jumping  upon  him,  or  a  cloth 
which  he  wore,  tied  around  the  belly,  would  be  tightly  twisted 
with  a  stick.  This  was  generally  looked  upon  as  a  Idnd  of  demo- 
niacal possession  until  a  multitude  of  these  dancers  assembled  at 
Herestal  and  consulted  together  as  to  the  best  plan  for  slaying  aU 
the  priests,  canons,  and  clergy  of  Liege,  when  the  madness  was 


•  Cat.  Praedic.  Prov.  Saxon.  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VI.  344). — Raynald.  aun. 
1372,  No.  33,  34.— Mosheim  de  Begbaidis  pp.  388-92.— Martini  Append,  ad  Mos- 
heim  pp.  647-8. 


394  GERMANY. 

recognized  as  no  longer  harmless.  Still  it  spread  over  a  large  por- 
tion of  Germany  and  lasted  for  several  years.  Tliough  not  in  it- 
self a  heresy,  it  led  in  some  places  to  heretical  opinions  on  the 
sacraments,  for  it  was  popularly  explained  by  attributing  it  to  de- 
fective baptism,  caused  by  the  universal  practice  among  priests  of 
keeping  concubines.* 

Scarce  had  the  Inquisition  been  fairly  organized  and  had  set- 
tled to  its  work,  when  its  arbitrary  proceedings  awakened  active 
opposition.  As  the  heretic  Beghards  and  Beguines  were  the  prin- 
cipal objects  of  its  activity,  and  the  orthodox  ones  of  its  cupidity, 
the  sufferings  of  the  latter  speedily  awoke  compassion  which 
found  expression  in  terms  so  decided  that  Gregory  XI,  could  not 
refuse  to  hsten.  Accordingly,  in  April,  1374,  he  wrote  to  the 
Archbishops  of  Mainz,  Treves,  and  Cologne,  reciting  these  com- 
plaints and  ordering  a  report  about  the  life  and  conversation  of 
the  persons  concerned,  who  should  be  protected  and  cherished  if 
innocent,  and  be  punished  if  guilty.  At  least  from  Cologne  and 
"Worms,  probably  from  the  other  prelates,  came  answers  that  the 
persecuted  communities  were  composed  of  faithful  Catholics.  In 
Cologne  the  magistrates  intervened  and  complained  energetically 
to  the  pope  that  a  Dominican  inquisitor  was  vexing  the  poor  folk, 
and  they  asked  that  his  proceedings  be  stopped.  The  victims,  they 
said,  were  people  of  Uttle  culture,  who  were  interrogated  with  ques- 
tions so  difficult  that  the  most  skilful  theologians  could  scarce  an- 
swer them,  while  their  edifying  lives  had  led  the  clergy  to  pro- 
tect them  against  the  threats  of  the  Inquisition.  Proceedings 
were  thus  checked,  but  stiU  the  peculiar  garments  which  the  dev- 
otees had  always  worn  furnished  an  excuse  for  continued  persecu- 
tion, and  another  appeal  was  made  to  Gregory,  to  which  he  re- 
sponded in  December,  13YT,  by  ordering  the  prelates  not  to  permit 
their  molestation  on  this  account  so  long  as  they  were  good  Catho- 
lics and  obedient  to  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  The  German 
bishops  were  thus  fully  armed  Avith  papal  authority  to  restrict  the 
operations  of  the  inquisitors,  and  those  who,  like  Bishop  Lambert 


*  Martene  Thesaur.  II.  960-1.— Chron.  Cornel.  Zantfliet  Qlartene  Ampl.  Coll. 
V.  293,  301-2).— Rayuald.  ann.  1372,  No.  33.— Meyeri  Annal.  Flandri£e  ann. 
1373.— Mag.  Chron.  Belgic.  ann.  1374.— Trithem.  Chron.  Hirsaug.  ann.  1374.— 
P.  de  Herentals  Vit.  Gregor.  XI.  ann.  1375  (Muratori  S.  R.  I.  III.  ii.  674-5). 


THE    INQUISITION    REPRESSED.  395 

of  Strassburg,  were  themselves  disposed  to  persecution,  did  not 
dare  to  proceed  further.  The  regular  communities  of  Beghards 
and  Beguines  were  assured  of  toleration,  and  if  the  heretical 
Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit  managed  to  share  in  this  immunity,  it 
probably  did  not  give  the  prelates  much  concern.* 

All  this  was  discouraging  to  the  zeal  of  inquisitors  whose  in- 
stitution had  hardly  yet  taken  root  in  the  land,  but  worse  was 
still  to  follow.  In  1378  died  both  Gregory  XI.  and  Charles  IV. 
The  election  of  Urban  VI.  gave  rise  to  the  Great  Schism,  and 
Wenceslas,  the  son  and  successor  of  Charles,  was  notoriously  in- 
different to  the  interest  of  religion  as  represented  by  the  Church. 
Thus  deprived  of  its  two  indispensable  supporters,  the  Inquisition 
could  not  make  head  against  episcopal  jealousy.  In  1381  there 
could  have  been  no  inquisitors  in  the  extensive  dioceses  of  Ratis- 
bon,  Bamberg,  and  Misnia,  for  we  lind  the  Archbishop  of  Prague 
as  papal  legate  ordering  the  bishops  to  appoint  them,  and  threat- 
ening to  do  so  himself  in  case  of  disobedience.  Still  the  Inquisi- 
tion did  not  entirely  pretermit  its  labors.  In  1392  we  hear  of  a 
papal  inquisitor  named  Martin  who  travelled  through  Suabia  to 
Wtirzburg,  finding  in  the  latter  place  a  number  of  peasants  and 
simple  folk  belonging  to  the  sect  of  Flagellants  and  Beghards. 
They  had  not  in  them  the  stuff  of  martyrs,  and  accepted  the  pen- 
ance imposed  upon  them  of  joining  in  a  crusade  then  preaching 
against  the  Turks — the  first  time  for  nearly  a  century  that  we 
meet  with  this  penalty.  Then  Martin  went  to  Erfurt — always  a 
heretical  centre — where  he  came  upon  numerous  heretics  of  the 
same  kind.  Some  of  these  were  obstinate  and  were  duly  burned, 
others  accepted  penance,  and  the  rest  sought  safety  in  flight.  The 
following  year  there  was  burned  at  Cologne,  by  the  papal  inquisi- 
tor, Albert,  a  leading  Beghard  known  as  Martin  of  Mainz,  a  for- 
mer Benedictine  monk  and  a  disciple  of  the  celebrated  Nicholas  of 
Basle ;  and  in  his  trial  there  are  allusions  to  others  of  the  sect  ex- 
ecuted not  long  before  at  Heidelberg.f 

About  this  period,  after  a  long  interval,  we  again  become  cog- 

•  Mosheim  de  Beghardis  pp.  394-8.— Haupt,  Zeitschrift  fiir  K.  G.  1885,  pp. 
525-6,  553-4,  563-4.— HaMiimciiin  Glosa  quariimd.  Bullar.  per  Beghardos  impe- 
tratar.  (Basil.  1497,  c.  4  sqq.). 

t  Ilollor,  Prager  Concilieu,  pp.  26-7. — Tritlicm.  Cliron.  Hirsaug.  ann.  1392.— » 
Jundt,  Lcs  Amis  dc  Dieu,  p.  3. — Ilaupt,  ubi  sup.  p.  510. 


396  GERMANY. 

nizant  of  the  existence  of  Waldenses.  The  Beghards  had  sue. 
ceeded  in  concentrating  upon  themselves  the  attention  of  the 
papal  and  episcopal  inquisitions,  and  the  followers  of  Peter  Waldo 
had  remained  unnoticed,  doubtless  owing  their  safety  to  outward 
conformity,  though  by  absenting  themselves  from  their  parishes 
about  the  Easter  tide  they  sometimes  managed  to  escape  taking 
communion  for  live  or  six  years  in  succession.  Thus  laboring 
quietly  and  peacefully,  preaching  by  night  in  cellars,  mills,  stables, 
and  other  retired  places,  they  gained  numerous  converts  among 
the  peasants  and  artisans,  who  saw  in  the  sanctity  of  their  Hves, 
as  sadly  admitted  by  the  so-called  Peter  of  Pilichdorf,  the  strong- 
est contrast  with  the  scandalous  license  of  the  clergy.*  Thus  they 
multiplied  in  secret  until  all  Germany  was  full  of  them,  including 
the  closely-related  sect  of  Winkelers.  About  1390  they  were  dis- 
covered in  Mainz,  where  for  a  hundred  years  they  had  lurked  un- 
disturbed.    The  Archbishop,  Conrad  II.,  kept  the  matter  in  his 


*  There  has  recently  been  discovered  at  St.  Florian,  in  Austria,  an  epistle 
written  in  1368  by  the  Waldenses  of  Lorabardy  to  some  of  their  German  breth- 
ren on  the  occasion  of  the  withdrawal  of  certain  members  of  the  sect,  who  al- 
leged in  justification  that  the  Waldenses  were  ignorant,  that  they  had  no  di- 
vine authority,  and  that  they  were  mercenary.  Evidently  the  local  church  had 
appealed  to  the  Lombards  as  to  a  central  head,  for  an  answer  to  these  accusa- 
tions, and  the  reply,  together  with  a  rejoinder  by  one  of  the  apostates,  throws 
valuable  light  upon  the  current  beliefs  of  the  sectaries.  It  appears  that  they 
carried  their  origin  back  to  the  primitive  Church,  claiming  that  their  predeces- 
sors had  opposed  the  reception  of  the  Donation  of  Constantine,  and  that  when 
Silvester  refused  to  reject  the  perilous  gift  a  voice  sounded  from  heaven,  "  This 
day  hath  poison  been  spread  in  the  Church  of  God."  As  they  were  unyielding, 
they  were  driven  out  and  persecuted,  since  when  they  had  preserved  the  genuine 
tradition  of  the  Church  in  obscurity  and  affliction.  They  asserted  that  Peter 
Waldo  had  been  ordained  to  the  priesthood,  and  that  they  possessed  full  author- 
ity, transmitted  from  God,  but  nothing  is  said  as  to  the  apostolical  succession, 
and  the  apostate,  Sigfried,  reproaches  them  with  only  hearing  confessions  and 
sending  their  disciples  to  the  Catholic  churches  for  the  other  sacraments.  Tliere 
is  no  word  as  to  transubstantiation,  which  must  therefore  have  been  an  accepted 
doctrine  among  them,  and  their  frequent  quotations  from  Augustine  and  Ber- 
nard show  that  they  admitted  the  authority  of  the  doctors  of  the  Church.  They 
allude  to  two  Franciscans  who  had  recently  joined  the  sect,  to  a  priest  who  had 
done  so  and  had  been  burned,  and  to  a  Bishop  Bestardi,  who,  for  the  same  of- 
fence, had  been  summoned  to  Rome,  whence  he  had  never  returned. — Comba, 
Histoire  des  Vaudois  d'ltalie,  I.  243-55. 


THE    WALDENSES.  397 

own  hands.  In  1392  he  issued  a  commission,  as  episcopal  inquisi- 
tors, to  Frederic,  Bishop  of  Toul,  Nicholas  of  Saulheim,  the  Dean 
of  St.  Stephen,  and  John  Wasmod,  of  Homburg,  a  priest  of  the 
cathedral,  to  whom  the  papal  inquisitor  could  adjoin  himself  if  he 
so  chose.  These  inquisitors  were  armed  with  full  authority  to 
arrest,  try,  torture,  sentence,  and  abandon  to  the  secular  arm  all 
heretics,  and  were  instructed  to  proceed  in  accordance  with  the 
practice  of  the  Inquisition.  They  zealously  discharged  their  duty. 
A  number  of  Waldenses  were  already  in  the  episcopal  prison,  and 
they  made  diligent  perquisition  after  the  rest.  By  free  use  of  tort- 
ure they  obtained  the  necessary  avowals  and  evidence.  Those 
who  were  obstinate  were  handed  over  to  the  secular  arm,  and 
an  auto  de  fe  celebrated  at  Bingen  in  1392,  where  six-and-thirty 
wretches  were  burned,  proved  that  the  papal  Inquisition  itself 
could  not  have  been  more  effective.  A  little  tract  on  the  exam- 
ination of  Waldenses,  evidently  written  on  this  occasion,  shows 
that  the  inquisitorial  process  was  fairly  weU  understood,  and  that 
the  episcopal  officials  had  not  much  to  learn  from  their  rivals.* 

When  attention  was  once  attracted  to  this  secret  heresy,  it  was 
not  long  before  Waldenses  were  discovered  everywhere.  In  a 
short  list  of  them,  dated  1391,  Poland,  Hungary,  Bavaria,  Suabia, 

*  Index  Error.  Waldens.  (Mag.  Bib.  Pat.  XIII.  340).— Petri  Herp  Annal.  Fran- 
cofurt.  ann.  1389  (Senckenberg  Select.  Juris  II.  19). — Gudeni  Cod.  Diplom.  III. 
598-600.— Serrarii  Hist.  Mogunt.  Lib.  v.  p.  707.— Hist.  Ordin.  Carthus.  (Martene 
Ampl.  Coll.  VI.  214).— Modus  examinandi  Haereticos(Mag.  Bib.  Pat.  XIII.  341-2). 

John  Wasmod  subsequentlj^  wrote  a  tract  against  the  Beghards  which  has 
been  printed  by  Haupt  (Zeitsclirift  fiir  Kirchengeschichte,  1885,  pp.  567-76). 
Its  chief  interest  lies  in  its  attributing  to  the  Beghards  the  tenets  of  the  Wal- 
denses. There  is  no  allusion  to  pantheism,  to  union  with  God,  to  refusal  of  the 
sacraments,  to  the  denial  of  hell  and  purgatory.  Either  he  confounds  the  sects, 
or  else  the  Waldenses  concealed  themselves  under  the  guise  of  Beghards,  or  else 
there  were  among  the  Beghards  a  certain  number  who  constituted  a  church 
separate  from  that  of  Rome  without  adopting  the  distinctive  principles  of  Amau- 
rianism.  Wasmod  tells  us  that  they  do  not  easily  receive  applicants,  whose 
obedience  they  test  by  making  them  eat  putrid  flesh,  drink  water  foul  with 
maggots,  etc.,  at  the  risk  of  their  lives.  One  of  their  strongest  arguments  is 
found  in  the  corruption  of  the  Church,  which  is  thus  deprived  of  the  power  of 
the  keys.  Distinctively  referable  to  Beghardism  is  the  assertion  that  these 
heretics  are  greatly  favored  and  defended  by  the  magistrates  of  the  cities;  and 
not  very  flattering  to  Rome  is  the  explanation  that  the  bulls  in  favor  of  the  Be- 
guines  were  obtained  by  the  use  of  money. 


398  GERMANY. 

and  Saxony  are  represented.  The  author  of  the  tract  which  passes 
under  the  name  of  Peter  of  PiHchdorf,  who  took  an  energetic  part 
both  with  the  pen  and  in  action  in  suppressing  this  suddenly  dis- 
covered heresy,  informs  us,  in  1395,  that  the  Netherlands,  West- 
phalia, Prussia,  and  Poland  were  not  infected  with  it,  while  Thu- 
ringia,  Misnia,  Bohemia,  Moravia,  Austria,  and  Hungary  numbered 
their  heretics  by  thousands.  Curiously  enough,  in  this  list  he 
omits  Pomerania,  where,  along  the  Baltic  regions,  the  Waldenses 
were  thickly  scattered  from  Stettin  to  Konigsberg.  The  heresy 
had  been  deeply  rooted  there  for  at  least  a  century,  and  the  local 
priesthood  seem  to  have  borne  no  ill-will  to  the  harmless  sectaries, 
who  conformed  outwardly  to  the  orthodox  observances.  Even 
when  in  confession  intimations  of  the  heresy  escaped,  as  sometimes 
happened,  they  w^ere  wisely  and  mercifully  overlooked.  Yet  there 
is  evidence  of  previous  persecution  in  the  confession  of  Sophia 
Myndekin,  of  Fleit,  who  said  that  she  had  been  fifty  years  in  the 
sect,  that  her  husband  had  been  burned  at  Angermiinde,  and  that 
she  had  only  escaped  on  account  of  pregnancy,  while  all  their  Httle 
property  was  confiscated.  They  were  poor  folk,  mostly  peasants 
and  laborers,  and  though  there  are  occasional  allusions  in  the  trials 
to  men  of  gentle  blood,  the  tenets  of  the  sect  excluded  all  who 
owed  feudal  military  service,  war  and  bloodshed  being  strictly  for- 
bidden. They  were  visited  yearly  by  their  ministers,  some  of 
whom  were  mechanics,  and  others  learned  men  skilled  in  Holy 
Writ,  probably  from  Bohemia,  who  preached,  heard  confessions, 
and  granted  absolution,  the  utmost  secrecy  being  observed  in  these 
ministrations.  Moreover,  collections  were  made  and  remitted  to 
the  headquarters  of  the  sect,  showing  that  they  formed  part  of  the 
great  Waldensian  organization.* 

They  had  long  been  unmolested  when  one  of  their  ministers, 
known  as  Brother  Klaus,  who  had  visited  them  in  1391  and  had 
heard  many  confessions,  apparently  became  frightened  at  the 
movement  against  them.  He  apostatized,  and  seems  to  have  be- 
trayed the  names  of  his  penitents.  The  Church  made  haste  to 
secure  the  fruits  of  his  repentance.     Brother  Peter,  Provincial  of 


•  Gretseri  Prolegom.  c.  6  (Mag.  Bib.  Pat.  XIII.  292).— Refutat.  Waldens.  (lb. 
p.  835). — P.  de  Pilichdorf.  c.  15  (lb.  p.  315).— Wattenbach,  Sitzungsberichte  der 
Preuss.  Akad.  1886,  pp.  48-9,  51. 


THE   WALDENSES.  399 

the  Celestinian  Order,  was  appointed  papal  inquisitor,  and  early 
in  1393  he  came  to  Stettin  armed  with  full  powers  from  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Prague  and  the  Bishops  of  Lebus  and  Camin  to  represent 
them.  He  issued  citations,  both  general  ones  from  the  pulpits  of 
the  infected  region,  and  special  summonses  to  individuals.  This 
naturally  caused  great  excitement,  and  some  of  the  suspects  fled  ; 
in  Klein-Wurbiser,  indeed,  there  was  a  faint  demonstration  made 
against  the  inquisitorial  apparitors,  but  there  was  no  resistance,  and 
the  great  majority  submitted  to  the  inevitable.  Friar  Peter,  as 
customary,  was  lenient  with  those  who  spontaneously  confessed 
and  abjured  ;  all  took  the  oaths,  including  that  of  persecuting  her- 
esy and  heretics, with  only  an  occasional  manifestation  of  hesitancy. 
Torture  seems  to  have  been  unnecessary ;  there  was  no  exhibition 
of  obstinacy,  and  no  burnings.  They  were  condemned  to  wear 
crosses  and  perform  other  penance,  and  when,  as  was  usually  the 
case,  their  parents  had  died  in  the  sect,  they  were  required  to  in- 
dicate the  place  of  burial,  presumably  for  exhumation.  From 
January,  1393,  until  February,  1394,  Friar  Peter  was  engaged  in 
this  work.  One  of  his  registers,  comprising  four  hundred  and 
forty-three  cases,  was  in  the  hands  of  Flacius  Illyricus,  fragments 
of  which  have  recently  been  discovered  and  described  by  Herr 
"Wattenbach.^ 

From  Pomerania,  Friar  Peter  hastened  to  the  south,  where  he 
found  Waldenses  as  numerous,  and  less  inclined  to  submission. 
He  has  left  a  brief  memorial  of  his  labors,  written  in  1395,  in  which 
he  expresses  his  fears  that  the  heresy  would  become  dominant,  as 
the  Waldenses  were  resorting  to  force,  and  were  employing  arson 
and  homicide  to  intimidate  the  orthodox.  His  only  evidence  of 
this,  however,  is  that  on  September  8,  those  of  Steyer,  to  ])unish 
the  parish  priest  for  receiving  the  inquisitors  in  his  house,  burned 
his  barn,  and  affixed  to  the  town  gates,  by  night,  a  warning  in 
the  shape  of  a  half-burned  brand  and  a  bloody  knife.  This  offence 
was  cruelly  avenged,  for  in  1397,  at  Steyer,  more  than  a  hundred 
Waldenses  of  either  sex  were  burned.  In  this  relentless  persecu- 
tion the  case  of  a  child  of  ten  condemned  to  wear  crosses  shows 
how  unsparing  were  the  tribunals,  while  others  in  which  the  cul- 


•  Wattcnbacb,  op.  cit.  pp.  49-50,  54-55.— Flac.  lUyr.  Cat.  Test.  Vcritatis  Lib. 
XV.  pp.  1506,  1524;  Lib.  xviii.  p.  1803  (Ed.  1608). 


400  GERMANY. 

prits  were  burned  for  relapse,  having  already  abjured  before  the 
inquisitor,  Henry  of  Olmiitz,  indicate  that  this  was  not  the  first 
effort  made  to  exterminate  the  heresy.  IIow  extended  it  was,  and 
how  vigorous  its  repression,  may  be  gathered  from  the  pseudo 
Peter  of  Pilichdorf,  who  tells  us  that  from  Thuringia  to  Moravia 
a  thousand  converts  were  made  in  two  years,  and  that  the  inquisi- 
tors who  were  busy  in  Austria  and  Hungary  expected  soon  to  have 
a  thousand  more.* 

About  the  year  1400,  in  Strassburg,  there  was  active  persecu- 
tion against  a  sect  known  as  "Winkelers,  who  were  discovered  to 
have  four  assemblies  in  the  city,  and  others  in  Mainz  and  Hagenau. 
In  their  confessions  they  alluded  to  their  comrades  in  many  other 
places,  such  as  Nordlingen,  Ratisbon,  Augsburg,  Tischengen,  So- 
leure,  Berne,  Weissenberg,  Speier,  Holzhausen,  Schwiibisch-Worth, 
Friedberg,  and  Yienna.  Although,  strictly  speaking,  not  "Walden- 
ses,  they  had  so  many  traits  in  common  that  the  distinction  is 
rather  one  of  organization  than  of  faith.  In  1374  one  of  their 
number  returned  to  the  Church,  and  the  fear  of  his  betraying  the 
little  community  led  to  his  deliberate  murder,  the  assassins  being 
paid,  and  undergoing  penance  to  obtain  absolution.  Some  years 
later  the  inquisitor,  John  Arnoldi,  was  threatened  with  similar 
vengeance  and  left  the  city.  In  the  final  persecution  some  thirty 
families  were  put  on  trial,  while  many  succeeded  in  remaining  con- 
cealed. There  was  but  one  noble  among  them,  Blumstein,  who 
abjured,  and  who,  some  twenty  years  later,  is  found  filling  impor- 
tant civic  posts.  Though  reference  is  made  in  one  of  the  trials  to 
members  of  the  sect  who  had  been  burned  at  Eatisbon,  those  of 
Strassburg  were  more  fortunate.  The  inquisitor,  Bockeln,  is  said 
to  have  received  bribes  for  assigning  private  penance  to  some  of 
the  guilty ;  and  though  the  Dominicans  demanded  the  burning  of 
the  heretics,  the  magistrates  interceded  with  the  episcopal  official, 
and  banishment  was  the  severest  penalty  inflicted.  Torture,  how- 
ever, had  been  freely  used  in  obtaining  confessions.  After  this, 
nothing  more  is  heard  in  Strassburg  of  either  Winkelers  or  "Wal- 
denses  until  the  burning  of  Frederic  Eeiser  in  1458.f 

*  W.  Preger,  Beitrage,  pp.  51,  53-4,  68,  73.— P.  de  Pilichdorf  c.  15  (Mag.  Bib. 
Pat.  XIII.  315). 

t  Hoffmann,  Geschichte  der  Inquisition,  II.  384-90. — C.  Schmidt,  Real-Ency- 
klop.  8.  V.  Wiukeler. 


THE  BEGHARDS.  — CHANGES    OF    POLICY.  401 

There  evidently  was  ample  work  for  the  Inquisition  in  Ger- 
many, but  it  seems  to  have  been  more  anxious  to  repair  its  defeat 
in  the  contest  with  the  Beghards  than  to  operate  against  the 
Waldenses.  In  the  general  excitement  on  the  subject  of  heresy  it 
was  not  difficult  to  render  the  Beghards  objects  of  renewed  suspi- 
cion and  persecution.  To  some  extent  the  bishops  and  most  of  the 
inquisitors  joined  in  this,  but  the  suspects  had  friends  among  the 
prelates,  Avho  wrote,  towards  the  close  of  1393,  to  Boniface  IX.,  eulo- 
gizing their  piety,  obedience,  and  good  works,  and  asking  protec- 
tion for  them.  To  this  Boniface  responded,  January  T,  1394,  in  a 
brief  addressed  to  the  German  prelates,  ordering  them  to  investi- 
gate whether  these  persons  are  contaminated  with  the  errors  con- 
demned by  Clement  Y.  and  John  XXII.,  and  whether  they  follow 
any  reproved  religious  Order ;  if  not,  they  are  to  be  efficiently 
protected.  An  exemplified  copy  of  this  brief,  given  by  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Magdeburg,  October  20,  1396,  shows  that  it  continued 
to  be  used  and  was  relied  upon  in  the  troubles  which  followed, 
soon  after,  through  a  sudden  change  of  policy  by  Boniface.  The 
Inquisition  did  not  remain  passive  under  this  interference  with  its 
operations.  It  represented  to  Boniface  that  for  a  hundred  years 
heresies  had  lurked  under  the  outward  fair-seeming  of  the  Beg- 
hards and  Beguines,  in  consequence  of  which,  almost  every  year, 
obstinate  heretics  had  been  burned  in  the  different  cities  of  the 
empire,  and  that  their  suppression  was  impeded  by  certain  papal 
constitutions  which  were  urged  in  their  protection.  Boniface  was 
easily  moved  to  reversing  his  recent  action,  and  by  a  bull  of  Janu- 
ary 31,  1395,  he  restored  to  vigor  the  decrees  of  Urban  Y.,  Greg- 
ory XI.,  and  Charles  lY.,  under  which  he  ordered  the  Inquisition 
to  prosecute  earnestly  the  Beghards,  LoUards,  and  Zwestriones. 
This  gave  f uU  power  to  molest  the  orthodox  associations  as  well 
as  the  heretic  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit,  and  a  severe  storm  of 
persecution  burst  over  them.  Even  some  of  the  bishops  joined  in 
this,  as  appears  from  a  synod  held  in  Magdeburg  about  this  time, 
which  ordered  the  priests  to  excommunicate  and  expel  them.  Yet 
this  again  aroused  their  friends,  and  Boniface  was  induced  to  re- 
issue his  bull  with  an  addition  which,  like  the  contradictory  pro- 
visions of  the  Clementines,  shows  the  perplexity  caused  by  the  ad- 
mixture of  orthodoxy  and  heresy  among  the  Beguines.  After 
repeating  his  commands  for  their  su})pression,  he  adds  that  there 
II.— 26 


402  GERMANY. 

are  pious  organizations  known  as  Beghards,  Lollards,  and  Zwestri- 
oties,  which  shall  be  permitted  to  wear  their  vestments,  to  beg,  and 
to  continue  their  mode  of  life,  excommunication  being  threatened 
against  any  inquisitor  who  shall  molest  thorn,  unless  they  have 
been  convicted  by  the  ordinaries  of  the  diocese.* 

This  left  the  matter  very  much  to  the  discretion  of  the  local 
authorities,  but  the  spirit  of  persecution  was  fairly  revived,  and 
the  Inquisition  made  haste  to  fortify  its  position.  Under  pretext 
that  the  bulls  of  Gregory  XI.  were  becoming  worn  by  age  and 
use,  it  procured  their  renewal  from  Boniface  IX.,  in  1395,  though 
the  pope  is  careful  to  express  that  he  grants  no  new  privileges. 
In  1399  it  succeeded  in  having  the  number  of  inquisitors  increased 
to  six  for  the  Dominican  province  of  Saxony  alone,  on  the  plea 
that  its  wide  extent  and  populous  cities  rendered  the  existing  force 
insufficient.  This  was  not  without  reason,  for  the  province  em- 
braced the  great  archiepiscopal  districts  of  Mainz,  Cologne,  Magde- 
burg, and  Bremen,  to  which  were  added  Eiigen  and  Camin.  Camin 
belonged  to  the  province  of  Gnesen,  and  Riigen  formed  part  of 
the  diocese  of  Roskild,  which  was  suffragan  to  the  metropoUtan 
of  Liinden  in  Sweden,  thus  furnishing  the  only  instance  of  inquisi- 
torial jurisdiction  in  any  region  that  can  be  caUed  Scandinavian, 
save  a  barren  attempt  made,  in  1421,  under  the  stimulus  of  the 
Hussite  troubles.  A  few  weeks  later  Boniface  issued  another  bull, 
ordering  the  prelates  and  secular  rulers  of  Germany  to  give  all  aid 
and  protection  to  Friar  Eylard  Schoneveld  and  other  inquisitors, 
and  especially  to  lend  the  use  of  their  prisons,  as  the  Inquisition 
in  those  parts  is  said  to  have  none  of  its  own,  which  shows  that 
Kerlinger's  scheme  of  obtaining  them  from  the  property  of  the 
Beghards  had  not  proved  a  success.  Eylard  set  vigorously  to  work 
in  the  lands  adjoining  the  Baltic,  which  from  their  remoteness  had 
probably  escaped  his  predecessors.  At  Lubec,  in  1402,  he  pro- 
cured the  arrest  of  a  Dolcinist  named  Wilhelm  by  the  municipal 
officials,  showing  that  he  had  no  familiars  of  his  own ;  the  accused 
was  examined  several  times  in  the  presence  of  numerous  clerks, 
monks,  and  laymen,  showing  that  the  secrecy  of  the  inquisitorial 
process  was  unknown  or  unobserved,  and  he  w^as  finally  burned. 


•  Martini  Append,  ad  Mosheim  pp.  652-66,  674-5.  —  Mosheim  pp.  409-10, 
430-1.— Hartzheim  V.  676.— Haupt.  Zntsclnift  fiir  K.  G.  1885,  pp.  565-7. 


FLAGELLANTS.  — BEGHARDS.  403 

He  had  a  comrade  named  Bernhard,  who  fled  to  Wismar,  whither 
Schoneveld  followed  him  and  had  him  burned  in  1403.  The  same 
year  he  seized  a  priest  at  Stralsund,  who  rejected  all  soKcitations 
to  abjure,  and  was  burned  as  a  persistent  heretic  ;  and  at  Rostock 
he  condemned  for  heresy  a  woman  who  drove  away  with  the  bit- 
terest reproaches  her  son,  a  Cistercian  monk,  when  he  urged  her 
to  recant,  and  who  likewise  perished  in  the  flames.* 

About  this  period  heresy  appears  to  have  had  also  to  contend 
with  a  reaction  on  the  part  of  the  secular  authorities.  When,  in 
1400,  the  Flagellants  made  a  demonstration  in  the  Low  Countries, 
the  magistrates  of  Maestricht  expelled  them,  and  when  the  people 
took  their  side  the  energetic  interference  of  the  Bishop  of  Liege 
put  an  end  to  the  insubordination ;  besides,  the  Sire  de  Perweis 
threw  a  band  of  Flagellants  into  his  dungeons  and  Tongres  closed 
its  gates  upon  them,  so  that  the  epidemic  was  checked.  With  the 
year  1400  the  comparative  peace  which  the  Beguines  had  enjoyed 
for  some  fifteen  years  came  to  an  end.  Their  most  dreaded  enemy 
was  the  Dominican,  John  of  Miihlberg,  whose  purity  of  life  and 
energy  in  battling  with  the  moral  and  spiritual  errors  of  his  time 
won  him  a  wide  reputation  throughout  Germany,  so  that  when 
he  died  in  exile,  driven  from  Basle  by  the  clergy  whom  his  attacks 
had  embittered,  he  was  long  regarded  by  the  people  as  a  saint  and 
a  martyr.  About  1400  he  stirred  up  in  Basle  a  struggle  with  the 
Beguines,  which  for  ten  years  kept  the  city  in  an  uproar.  Prima- 
rily an  episode  in  the  hostihty  between  the  Dominicans  and  Fran- 
ciscans, it  extended  to  the  clergy  and  magistrates,  and  finally  to 
the  citizens  at  large.  In  1405  the  Beguines  were  expelled,  but  the 
Franciscans  obtained  from  the  papacy  bulls  ordering  their  restora- 
tion, and  the  retraction  of  all  that  had  been  said  against  them. 
At  last,  in  1411,  Bishop  Humbert  and  the  town  council,  excited 
by  a  fiery  sermon  of  John  Pastoris,  abolished  the  associations, 
which  were  forced  to  abandon  their  living  in  common  and  tlieir 
vestments,  or  to  leave  the  place.  The  city  of  Berne  followed  this 
example,  and  the  magistrates  of  Strassburg  took  the  same  course, 
when  some  of  the  Beguines  adopted  the  former  alternative  and 


•  Mosheim  de  Beghardis  pp.  225-8,  383-4.— Martini  Append,  ad  j^fosheim 
pp.  656-7.— Herm.  Corneri  Chron.  ann.  1402-3  (Eccard.  Corp.  Hist.  II.  1185-C). 
— Raynald.  ann.  1403,  No.  23. 


404  GERMANY. 

some  the  latter.  Many  of  tliese  took  refuge  secretly  at  Mainz. 
They  were  discovered,  and  the  archbishop,  John  11.,  holding  them 
to  be  heretics,  ordered  them  to  be  prosecuted.  The  matter  was 
intrusted  to  Master  Henry  von  Stein,  who  set  vigorously  about 
it.  The  refugees  from  Strassburg,  mostly  women,  were  thrown 
into  prison  ;  we  also  hear  of  a  nun  who  was  likewise  incarcerated, 
and  of  a  youth  from  Rotenburg,  who  was  mounted  on  a  hogshead 
in  the  public  square,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  populace  was 
obliged  to  accept  the  penance  of  crosses,  in  an  auto  de  fe  much 
less  impressive  than  those  which  Bernard  Gui  was  wont  to  cele- 
brate.* 

It  was  not  long  before  this  that  the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit 
were  deprived  of  their  greatest  leader,  Nicholas  of  Basle.  As 
a  wandering  missionary  he  had  for  many  years  been  engaged  in 
propagating  the  doctrines  of  the  sect,  and  had  gained  many  pros- 


*  Chron.  Cornel.  Zantfliet  ann.  1400  (Martene  Amplis.  Coll.  V.  358).— Haupt, 
Zeitschrift  fur  K.  G.  1885,  pp.  513-15.— Chron.  Glassberger  ann.  1410  (Analecta 
Franciscana  II.  233-5). — Martini  Append,  ad  Mosheim  p.  559. — Mosheim  p.  455. 
— Serrarii  Lib.  v.  (Scriptt.  Rer.  Mogunt.  I.  724). 

In  1399  an  outbreak  very  similar  to  that  of  the  Flagellants  took  place  in  Italy, 
stimulated  by  a  pestilence  which  was  ravaging  the  land.  The  pilgrims  were 
known  as  Bianchi,  from  the  white  linen  vestments  which  they  wore,  and  they 
first  brought  to  popular  notice  the  "  Stabat  Mater,"  which  was  their  favorite 
hymn.  The  only  reference  to  flagellation,  however,  is  that  in  Genoa  they  were 
joined  by  the  old  fraternities  of  the  Verberati  or  guilds,  founded  in  1306,  which 
publicly  used  the  scourge.  The  Archbishop  of  Genoa  and  many  of  the  Lombard 
bishops  lent  the  movement  their  countenance ;  universal  peace  was  proclaimed, 
enemies  forgave  each  other,  and  even  the  strife  of  Guelf  and  Ghibelline  for  a 
moment  was  forgotten.  When  we  are  told  that  twenty-five  thousand  Modenese 
made  the  pilgrimage  to  Bologna,  we  can  readily  understand  wliy  suspicious  rulers, 
such  as  Galeazzo  Visconti  and  the  Signory  of  Venice,  forbade  the  entry  of  their 
states  to  such  armies.  Boniface  IX.  probably  felt  the  same  alarm  when  tlie  move- 
ment reached  Rome,  and  the  whole  population,  including  some  of  the  cardinals, 
put  on  white  garments  and  marched  in  procession  through  the  neighboring  towns. 
He  caused  one  of  the  leaders  to  be  seized  at  Aquapendente ;  the  free  use  of  tort- 
ure brought  a  confession  that  the  whole  affair  was  a  fraud,  and  the  poor  wretch 
was  burned,  when  the  movement  collapsed. — Georgii  Stella  Annal.  Genuens.  ann. 
1399  (Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  XVII.  1170).— Matthsei  de  Griffonibus  Memor.  Historial. 
ann.  1399  (lb.  XVIII.  207).— Cronica  di  Bologna  ann.  1399  (lb.  XVIII.  565).— 
Annal.  Estens.  ann.  1398  (lb.  XVIII.  956-8).— Conrad  Urspurgens.  Chron.  Contin. 
ann.  1399. — Theod.  a  Niem  de  Schismate,  Lib.  ii.  c.  26. 


BRETHREN    OF    THE    FREE    SPIRIT.  405 

elytes.  The  Inquisition  had  been  eagerly  on  his  track,  but  he  was 
shrewd  and  crafty,  and  had  eluded  its  pursuit.  Forced,  probably 
about  1397,  to  fly  to  "Vienna  with  two  of  his  disciples,  John  and 
James,  they  were  discovered  and  seized.  The  celebrated  Henry 
of  Hesse  (Langenstein)  undertook  their  conversion,  and  flattered 
himself  that  he  had  succeeded,  but  they  all  relapsed  and  were 
burned.  As  Peter,  the  Celestinian  abbot,  was  at  this  time  Inquis- 
itor of  Passau,  he  probably  had  the  satisfaction  of  ridding  the 
Church  of  this  dangerous  heresiarch,  whose  belief  in  his  own  di- 
vine inspiration  was  such  that  he  considered  his  wiU  to  be  equal 
to  that  of  God. 

Not  long  after  a  similar  martyrdom  occurred  at  Constance, 
where  a  Beghard,  named  Burgin,  had  founded  a  sect  of  extreme 
austerity.  Captured  with  his  disciples  by  the  bishop,  he  would 
not  abandon  his  doctrines,  and  was  duly  relaxed.  Gerson's  nu- 
merous allusions  to  the  Turelupins  and  Beghards  show  that  at  this 
period  the  sect  was  attracting  much  attention  and  was  regarded 
as  seductively  dangerous.  With  all  his  tendency  to  mysticism, 
Gerson  could  recognize  the  peril  incurred  by  those  whom  he  de- 
scribes as  deceived  through  too  great  a  desire  to  reach  the  sweet- 
ness of  God,  and  who  mistake  the  delirium  of  their  own  hearts 
for  divine  promptings :  thus  disregarding  the  law  of  Christ,  they 
follow  their  own  inclinations  without  submitting  to  rule,  and  are 
precipitated  into  guilt  by  their  own  presumption.  He  was  espe- 
cially averse  to  the  spiritual  intimacy  between  the  sexes,  where 
devotion  screened  the  precipice  on  the  brink  of  which  they  stood. 
Mary  of  Valenciennes,  he  says,  was  especially  to  be  avoided  on 
this  account,  for  she  applied  what  is  set  forth  about  the  divine 
fruition  to  the  passions  seething  in  her  own  soul,  and  she  argues 
that  he  who  reaches  the  perfection  of  divine  love  is  released  from 
the  observance  of  all  precepts.  Thus  the  Brethren  of  the  Free 
Spirit  were  practically  the  same  in  the  fifteenth  century  as  in  the 
times  of  Ortlieb  and  Amauri.* 

Giles  Cantor,  who  founded  in  Brussels  the  sect  which  styled 
itself  Men  of  Intelligence,  was  probably  a  disciple  of  Mary  of  Ya- 


*  Nider  Formicar.  Lib.  in.  c.  2.— Haupt,  Zeitschrift  fur  K.  G.  1885,  pp.  510- 
11. — Gersoni  de  Consolat.  Theolog.  Lib.  rv.  Prosa  iii. ;  Ejusd.  de  IMystica  Tlieol. 
speculat.  P.  I.  consid.  viii. ;  Ejusd.  de  Distinct,  verar.  Vision,  a  falsis,  Signum  v. 


406  GERMANY. 

lenciennes,  and  the  name  was  adopted  merely  to  cover  its  affilia- 
tion with  the  proscribed  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit.  Its  doc- 
trines were  substantially  the  same  in  their  mystic  pantheism  and 
illuminism  ;  and  their  practical  application  is  seen  in  the  story 
that  on  one  occasion  Giles  was  moved  by  the  spirit  to  go  naked 
for  some  miles  when  carrying  provision  to  a  poor  person.  So  open 
a  manifestation  would  have  insured  his  prosecution  had  there 
been  any  machinery  for  persecution  in  efficient  condition  in  Bra- 
bant ;  but  he  was  allowed  to  propagate  his  doctrines  in  peace  until 
he  died.  lie  was  succeeded  in  the  leadership  of  the  sect  by  a  Car- 
melite known  as  William  of  Ililderniss,  and  at  length  it  attracted, 
in  1411,  the  attention  of  Cardinal  Peter  d'Ailly,  Bishop  of  Cam- 
brai.  Fortunately  for  "William,  the  bishop  cliose  to  direct  the 
proceedings  himself,  and  they  show  complete  disregard  of  inquisi- 
torial methods.  He  appointed  special  commissioners,  who  made 
an  inquisition ;  both  the  names  and  the  testimony  of  the  witnesses 
were  submitted  to  William,  Avho  made  what  defence  he  could.  In 
rendering  judgment  d'Ailly  called  in  the  Dominican  Prior  of  St. 
Quentin,  who  was  inquisitor  of  the  district  of  Cambrai,  and  the 
sentence  was  as  irregular  as  the  proceedings.  William  had  no  de- 
sire for  martyrdom,  and  abjured  the  heresy ;  he  was  required  to 
purge  himself  with  six  compurgators,  after  which  he  was  to  un- 
dergo the  penance  of  three  years'  confinement  in  a  castle  of  the 
bishop's,  while  if  he  failed  in  his  purgation  he  was  to  be  im- 
prisoned in  a  convent  of  his  order  during  the  archbishop's  pleas- 
ure— a  most  curious  and  illogical  medley.  He  succeeded  in  find- 
ing the  requisite  number  of  compurgators,  but  though  he  disap- 
peared from  the  scene  his  sect  was  by  no  means  extinguished,  and 
we  hear  of  the  persecution  of  a  heresiarch  as  late  as  11:28.* 

That  Clement  YI.  did  not  err  when  he  foresaw  the  dangerous 
errors  lurking  under  the  devotion  of  the  Flagellants  was  demon- 
strated in  1111.  The  sect  still  existed,  and  its  crude  theories  as 
to  the  efficacy  of  flagellation  had  gradually  been  developed  into 
an  antisacerdotal  heresy  of  the  most  uncompromising  character. 
A  certain  Conrad  Schmidt  was  the  constructive  heresiarch  who 
gave  to  its  belief  an  organized  completeness,  and  his  death  made 


*  Baluz.  et  Mansi  I.  288-93. — Altmeyer,  Les  Precurseurs  de  la  Reforme  aux 
Pajs-Bas,  I.  84. 


BRETHREN    OF   THE   CROSS.  407 

no  diminution  of  the  zeal  of  his  disciples,  nor  did  the  failure  of  his 
prophecy  of  the  end  of  the  world  in  1369.  The  curious  connec- 
tion l^etween  the  Flagellants  and  the  Beghards  is  indicated  by  the 
fact  that  these  Flagellant  Brethren,  or  Brethren  of  the  Cross,  as 
they  styled  themselves,  regarded  Conrad  as  the  incarnation  of 
Enoch,  and  a  certain  Beghard,  who  had  been  burned  at  Erfurt 
about  1364r,  as  Elias — an  angel  having  brought  their  souls  from 
heaven  and  infused  them  into  Schmidt  and  this  Beghard  while  yet 
in  the  womb.  Schmidt  was  to  preside  at  the  approaching  Day  of 
Judgment,  which  was  constantly  believed  to  be  at  hand.  Anti- 
christ being  the  pope  and  the  priests,  whose  reign  was  drawing  to 
an  end. 

"When,  in  1343,  the  letter  commanding  flagellation,  to  which  I 
have  already  alluded,  was  brought  by  an  angel  and  laid  on  the 
altar  of  St.  Peter,  God  withdrew  all  spiritual  power  fi'om  the 
Church  and  bestowed  it  on  the  Brethren  of  the  Cross.  Since  then 
all  sacraments  had  lost  their  virtue,  and  to  partake  of  them  was 
mortal  sin.  Baptism  had  been  replaced  by  that  of  the  blood 
drawn  by  the  scourge ;  the  sacrament  of  matrimony  only  defiled 
marriage ;  the  Eucharist  was  but  a  device  by  which  the  priests 
sold  a  morsel  of  bread  for  a  penny — if  they  beheved  it  to  be  the 
body  of  Christ  they  were  worse  than  Judas,  who  got  thirty  pieces 
of  silver  for  it;  flagellation  replaced  them  all.  Oaths  were  a 
mortal  sin,  but  to  avoid  betraying  the  sect  the  faithful  could  take 
them  and  receive  the  sacraments,  and  then  expiate  it  by  flagella- 
tion. The  growth  of  such  a  belief  and  the  mingled  contempt  and 
hatred  manifested  for  the  clergy  prove  that  to  the  people  the 
Church  was  as  much  a  stranger  and  an  oppressor  as  it  had  been 
in  the  twelfth  century.  It  had  learned  nothing,  and  was  as  far 
from  Christ  as  ever. 

Conrad  Schmidt  had  promulgated  his  errors  in  Thuringia, 
where  his  sectaries  were  discovered,  in  1-1:14,  at  Sangerhausen. 
Thither  sped  the  inquisitor  SchOneveld— called  Henry  by  the 
chroniclers,  but  probably  the  same  as  the  Eylard,  whom  we  have 
seen  at  work  some  years  before  on  the  shores  of  the  Baltic.  The 
princes  of  Thuringia  and  Misnia  were  ordered  to  assist  him,  and 
they  were  eager  to  share  in  the  suppression  of  a  heresy  which 
threatened  to  revolutionize  the  social  order.  The  proceedings 
must  have  been  more  energetic  than  regular.     Torture  must  have 


408  GERMANY. 

been  freely  used  to  gather  into  the  net  so  many  victims ;  nor  can 
a  })atient  hearing  have  been  given  to  the  accused.  Tlieir  shrift 
was  short,  and  before  Schonoveld  had  left  the  scene  of  action  he 
had  caused  the  burning  of  ninety-one  at  Sangerhausen,  forty-four 
in  the  neighboring  town  of  Winkel,  and  many  more  in  other  vil- 
lages. Yet  such  was  the  persistence  of  tlie  heresy  that  even  this 
wholesale  slaughter  did  not  suffice  for  its  suppression.  Two  years 
later,  in  1416,  its  remains  were  discovered,  and  again  Schoneveld 
was  sent  for.  He  examined  the  accused.  To  those  who  abjured 
he  assigned  penances,  and  handed  over  the  obstinate  to  the  secu- 
lar arm.  His  assizes  must  have  been  hurried,  for  he  did  not  stay 
to  witness  the  execution  of  those  whom  he  had  condemned,  and 
after  his  departure  the  princes  gathered  all  together,  both  peni- 
tents and  impenitents,  some  three  hundred  in  number,  and  burned 
the  whole  of  them  in  one  day.  This  terrible  example  produced 
the  profound  impression  that  was  desired,  and  hereafter  the  sect 
of  Flagellants  may  be  regarded  as  unimportant.  Some  discussion, 
as  we  have  seen,  took  place  the  next  year  at  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance, when  San  Vicente  Ferrer  expressed  his  approbation  of  this 
form  of  discipline,  and  Gerson  mildly  urged  its  dangers ;  but  when, 
in  1434,  a  certain  Bishop  Andreas  specified,  among  the  objects  of 
the  Council  of  Basle,  the  suppression  of  the  heresies  of  the  Huss- 
ites, "Waldenses,  Fraticelli,  Wicldiffltes,  the  Manichfeans  of  Bosnia, 
the  Beghards,  and  the  schismatic  Greeks,  there  is  no  allusion  in 
the  enumeration  to  Flagellants.  Yet  the  causes  which  had  given 
rise  to  the  heresy  continued  in  full  force  and  it  was  still  cherished 
in  secret.  In  1453  and  1454  Brethren  of  the  Cross  were  again 
discovered  in  Thuringia,  and  the  Inquisition  was  speedily  at  work 
to  reclaim  them.  Besides  the  errors  propagated  by  Conrad 
Schmidt,  it  was  not  difficult  to  extort  from  the  accused  the  cus- 
tomary confessions  of  foul  sexual  excesses  committed  in  dark  sub- 
terranean conventicles,  and  even  of  Luciferan  doctrines,  teaching 
that  in  time  Satan  would  regain  his  place  in  heaven  and  expel 
Christ ;  though  when  we  hear  that  they  alleged  the  evil  lives  of 
the  clergy  as  the  cause  of  their  misbelief  we  maj^  reasonably  doubt 
the  accuracy  of  these  reports.  Aschersleben,  Sondershausen,  and 
Sangerhausen  were  the  centres  of  the  sect,  and  at  the  latter  place, 
in  1454,  twenty-two  men  and  women  were  burned  as  obstinate 


THE  BEGHARDS  AT  CONSTANCE.        409 

heretics.     In  1481  a  few  were  punished  in  Anhalt,  and  the  sect 
gradually  disappeared.* 

The  case  of  the  Beghards  and  Beguines  came  before  the  Coun- 
cil of  Constance  in  several  shapes.  To  guard  themselves  from  the 
incessant  molestations  to  which  they  were  exposed  they  had,  to  a 
large  extent,  affiliated  themselves,  nominally  at  least,  as  Tertiaries, 
to  the  Mendicant  Orders,  chiefly  to  the  Franciscan,  whose  scapular 
they  adopted.  In  a  project  of  reform,  carefully  prepared  for  ac- 
tion by  the  council,  this  is  strongly  denounced ;  they  are  said  to 
live  in  forests  and  in  cities,  free  from  subjection,  indulging  in  inde- 
cent habits,  not  without  suspicion  of  heresy,  and  though  able  of 
body  and  fit  to  earn  their  livelihood  by  labor,  they  subsist  on 
alms,  to  the  prejudice  of  the  poor  and  miserable.  It  was  therefore 
proposed  to  forbid  the  wearing  of  the  scapular  by  all  who  were 
not  bound  by  vows  to  the  Orders  and  subjected  to  the  Rules.  It 
was  also  pronounced  necessary  to  make  frequent  visitations  of 
their  communities  on  account  of  the  peculiarities  of  their  Ufe,  and 
magistrates  and  nobles  were  to  be  ordered  not  to  interfere  with  such 
wholesome  supervision  under  pain  of  interdict.  It  was  possibly 
to  meet  this  attack  that  numerous  testimonial  letters  from  the 
clergy  and  magistrates  of  Germany  certifying  to  the  orthodoxy, 
piety,  and  usefulness  of  the  associations  were  sent  to  Martin  V., 
who  submitted  them  to  Angelo,  Cardinal  of  SS.  Peter  and  Mar- 
cellus,  and  received  from  him  a  favorable  report.  Towards  the 
close  of  the  council,  in  1418,  a  more  formidable  assault  was  made 
upon  them  by  Matthew  Grabon,  a  Dominican  of  Wismar,  who 


*  Theod.  Vrie,  Hist.  Concil.  Constant.  Lib.  iv.  Dist.  13. — Marieta,  Los  Santos 
de  Espana,  Lib.  xi.  c.  xxviii. — Gobelini  Person.  Cosmodrom.  iEt.  vi.  c.  93. — 
Chron.  S.  ^gid.  in  Brunswig  (Leibnitii  S.  R.  Brunsv.  III.  595). — Gieseler,  Lehr- 
buch  der  Kirchengeschichte,  H.  iii.  317-18. — Herm.  Corneri  Chron.  ann.  1416 
(Eccard.  Corp.  Hist.  IL  1206). — Andreae  Gubernac.  Concil.  P.  iv.  c.  11  (Von  der 
Hardt  VL  194). — Chron.  Magdeburgens.  ann.  1454  (Meibom.  Rer.  German.  H. 
362). — Haupt,  Zeitschrift  fiir  Kirchengeschichte,  1887,  114-18. — Herzog,  Abriss, 
n.  405. 

In  1448,  when  pestilence  and  famine  in  Italy  brought  men  to  a  sense  of  tlieir 
sins,  the  eloquence  of  Fra  Roberto,  a  Franciscan,  excited  multitudes  to  repent- 
ance, and  the  streets  of  the  cities  were  again  filled  with  Flagellants,  disciplining 
themselves  and  weeping  (Illoscas,  Historia  Pontifical,  II.  130). 


410  GERMANY. 

laid  before  Martin  Y.  twenty-four  articles  to  prove  that  all  such 
associations  outside  of  the  approved  religious  orders  ought  to  be 
abolished.  To  accomplish  this,  after  the  approved  style  of  scho- 
lastic logic,  he  was  obliged  to  ass(;rt  sucli  a])surd  general  principles 
as  that  it  was  equivalent  to  suicide,  and  thei'cfore  a  mortal  sin,  for 
any  secular  person  to  give  away  his  property  in  charity,  and  that 
the  pope  had  no  power  to  grant  a  dispensation  in  such  cases. 
Grabon's  propositions  and  conclusions  were  referred  to  Antonio, 
Cardinal  of  Yerona,  who  submitted  them  to  Cardinal  Peter  d'Ailly 
and  Chancellor  Gerson.  The  former  reported  that  the  paper  was 
heretical  and  should  be  burned,  while  the  jurists  should  be  called 
upon  to  decide  what  ought  to  be  done  to  its  writer.  The  latter, 
that  the  doctrine  was  pestiferous  and  blasphemous,  and  that  its 
author,  if  obstinate,  should  be  arrested.  Grabon  was  glad  to  es- 
cape by  publicly  abjuring  some  of  his  articles  as  heretical,  others 
as  erroneous,  and  others  as  scandalous  and  offensive  to  pious  ears. 
The  triumph  of  the  Beguines  was  decisive,  and  they  might  at  last 
hope  for  a  respite  from  persecution.  The  associations  increased 
and  flourished  accordingly,  and  under  their  shelter  the  Brethren 
of  the  Free  Spirit  continued  to  propagate  their  heresy.* 

From  this  time  forward  the  attention  of  the  Church  was  main- 
ly directed  to  Ilussitism,  the  most  formidable  enemy  that  it  had 
encountered  since  the  Catharism  of  the  twelfth  century.  This 
will  be  considered  in  a  following  chapter,  and  meanwhile  I  need 
only  say  that  its  secret  but  threatening  progress  throughout  Ger- 
many called  for  active  means  of  repression  and  led  to  more  thor- 
ough organization  of  the  Inquisition.  The  bull  of  Martin  Y., 
issued  February  22,  1418,  against  Wickliffites  and  Hussites,  is  ad- 
dressed not  only  to  prelates  but  to  inquisitors  commissioned  in  the 
dioceses  and  cities  of  Salzburg,  Prague,  Gnesen,  Olmiitz,  Litomysl, 
Bamberg,  Misnia,  Passau,  Breslau,  Patisbon,  Cracov/,  Posen,  and 
Neutra.  While  of  course  this  is  not  to  be  taken  literally,  as 
though  there  were  an  organized  tribunal  of  the  Holy  Office  in 
each  of  these  places,  still  it  indicates  that  in  the  districts  infected 
or  exposed  to  infection  the  Church  was  arming  itself  with  its 


*  Cone.  Constant.  Decret.  Refonn.  Lib.  iii.  Tit.  x.  c.  13;  Tit.  v.  c.  5  (Von  der 
Hardt,  I.  715-17).— Hemmerlin  Glosa  quarund.  Bullar.  (0pp.  c.  d.). — De  Rebus 
Matthaei  Grabon  (Von  der  Hardt,  III.  107-20). 


THE    BEGHARDS    PERSECUTED.  411 

most  effective  Aveapons.  The  growing  danger,  moreover,  was  lead- 
ing the  bishops  to  abandon  somewhat  their  traditional  jealousy. 
In  this  same  year,  1418,  the  council  of  the  great  province  of  Salz- 
burg not  only  urged  the  bishops  to  extirpate  heresy  and  to  enforce 
the  canons  against  the  secular  powers  neglecting  their  duty  in  this 
respect,  but  commanded  all  princes  and  potentates  to  seize  and 
imprison  all  who  were  designated  as  suspect  of  heresy  by  the  prel- 
ates and  the  inquisitors.  Thus  at  last  the  episcopate  recognized 
the  Inquisition  and  came  to  its  support.* 

Yet  the  attention  of  the  persecutors  was  not  so  exclusively 
directed  to  the  Hussites  as  to  allow  tlie  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit 
to  escape,  and  in  their  zeal  they  continued  to  molest  the  orthodox 
Beguines  in  spite  of  the  action  of  Martin  Y.  at  Constance.  In 
1431  Eugenius  lY.  found  himself  obliged  to  intervene  for  their 
protection.  In  a  bull,  addressed  to  the  German  prelates,  he  recites 
the  favorable  action  of  his  predecessors  and  the  troubles  to  which, 
in  spite  of  this,  they  were  exposed  by  the  inquisitors.  Those  who 
■wander  around  without  fixed  habitations  he  orders  to  be  compelled 
to  dwell  in  the  houses  of  the  confraternity,  and  tliose  who  reside 
quietly  and  piously  are  to  be  efficiently  protected.  This  buU  af- 
fords perhaps  the  only  instance  in  which  the  episcopal  power  is 
rendered  superior  to  the  Inquisition,  for  the  bishops  are  authorized 
to  enforce  its  provisions  by  the  censures  of  the  Church,  without 
appeal,  even  if  those  who  interfere  with  the  Beguines  enjoy  special 
immunities,  thus  subjecting  the  inquisitors  to  excommunication  by 
the  prelates.  This  stretch  of  papal  power  exasperated  Doctor 
Felix  Hemmerlin,  Cantor  of  Zurich,  who  detested  the  Beguines. 
He  wrote  several  bitter  tracts  against  them,  and  explained  the 
favor  shown  them  by  Eugenius  by  irreverently  stating  that  the 
pope  had  himself  been  once  a  Beghard  at  Padua.  In  one  of  his 
numerous  assaults  upon  them,  written  probably  about  1436,  he 
alludes  to  several  recent  cases  within  a  limited  region,  which  would 
indicate  that  in  spite  of  the  papal  protection  of  the  Beguines,  the 
Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit  were  actively  persecuted,  and  that,  if 
the  statistics  of  the  whole  empire  could  be  procured,  tlie  number 
of  victims  would  be  found  not  smaU.     Thus  in  Zurich  a  certain 


*  Von  der  Har(lt,IV.  1518. — Concil.  Salisburg.  xxxiv.  c.  32  (Dalham,  Concil 

Salisb.  p.  186). 


412  GERMANY. 

Burchard  and  his  disciples  were  tried  and  penanced  with  crosses ; 
but  they  were  subsequently  found  to  be  relapsed  and  were  all 
burned.  At  Uri,  Charles  and  his  followers  were  similarly  burned. 
At  Constance  Henry  de  Tierra  was  forced  to  al^jure.  At  Ulm, 
John  and  a  numerous  company  were  subjected  to  public  penance. 
In  Wiirtemberg  there  was  a  great  heresiarch  punished,  whose  con- 
viction was  only  secured  after  infinite  pains.  Then  from  Bohemia 
there  come  Beghards  every  year  who  seduce  a  countless  number 
to  heresy  in  Berne  and  Soleure.  This  leads  one  to  think  that 
Heramerhn,  in  his  passion,  may  confound  Hussites  with  Beghards, 
and  this  is  confirmed  by  his  assertion  that  there  is  in  Upper  Ger- 
many no  heresy  save  that  introduced  by  the  foxes  of  this  perni- 
cious sect.  Nider,  in  fact,  writing  immediately  after  the  Council  of 
Basle  had  effected  a  settlement  with  the  Hussites,  when,  for  a  time 
at  least,  in  Germany  they  were  no  longer  considered  enemies  of 
the  Church,  declares  that  heretics  were  few  and  powerless,  skulk- 
ing in  concealment  and  not  to  be  dreaded,  although  he  had,  in 
describing  the  errors  of  the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit,  stated 
that  they  were  still  by  no  means  uncommon  in  Suabia.  It  was 
evidently  a  member  of  this  sect  whom  he  describes  as  seeing  at 
Ratisbon  when  proceeding  with  the  Archdeacon  of  Barcelona  on 
a  mission  from  the  Council  of  Basle  to  the  Hussites.  She  was  a 
young  woman  of  spotless  character,  who  made  no  effort  to  propa- 
gate her  faith,  but  she  could  not  be  induced  to  recant.  The  arch- 
deacon advised  that  she  be  tortured  to  break  her  spirit,  which  was 
done  without  success  and  without  forcing  her  to  name  her  con- 
federates ;  but  when  Nider  visited  her  in  her  cell  during  the  even- 
ing, he  found  her  exhausted  with  suffering,  and  he  readily  brought 
her  to  acknowledge  her  error,  after  which  she  made  a  public  re- 
cantation. This  shows  us  that  there  could  have  been  no  Inquisi- 
tion in  Ratisbon,  and  that  the  local  authorities  had  even  lost  the 
memory  of  inquisitorial  proceedings.* 

In  1446  the  Council  of  Wiirzburg  found  it  necessary  to  repeat 
the  canon  of  that  of  Mainz  in  1310,  ordering  the  expulsion  of  aU 
wandering  Beghards  using  the  old  cry  of  '•'■  Brod  durch  GotV  and 
preaching  in  caverns  and  secret  places,  showing  the  maintenance 


•  Hemmerlin  Glosa  quarund.  BuUar ;  Ejusd.  LoUardorum  Descriptio. — Nider 
Formicar.  iii.  5,  7,  9. 


END    OF    THE    BEGHARDS.  413 

of  the  traditioiical  customs  and  also  the  absence  of  more  active 
persecution.  In  1453  Nicholas  V.  formaUy  adjoined  them  to  the 
Mendicant  Orders  as  Tertiaries.  Some  of  them  obeyed  and  formed 
a  distinct  class,  known  as  Zepperenses,  from  their  principal  house 
at  Zepper.  They  diminished  greatly  in  number,  however,  and  in 
1650  Innocent  X.  united  them  with  the  Tertiaries  of  Italy,  under 
the  General  Master  residing  in  Lombardy.  The  female  portion  of 
the  associations,  which  became  distinctively  known  as  Beguines, 
were  more  fortunate.  They  were  able  to  preserve  their  identity 
and  their  communities,  which  remain  flourishing  to  the  present 
day,  especially  in  the  Netherlands,  where  in  1857  the  great  Be- 
guinage  of  Ghent  contained  six  hundred  Beguines  and  two  hun- 
dred locataires  or  boarders.* 

Still  there  remained  a  considerable  number  both  of  heretic 
Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit  and  of  orthodox  Beghards  of  both 
sexes  who  recalcitrated  of  being  thus  brought  under  rule  and  de- 
prived of  their  accustomed  independence.  Thus  it  is  related  of 
Bernhard,  who  was  elected  Abbot  of  Ilirsau  in  1400,  that  among 
other  reforms  he  ejected  all  the  Beguines  from  their  house  at  Alt- 
burg,  on  account  of  their  impurity  of  life,  and  replaced  them  with 
Dominican  Tertiaries.  This  aroused  the  hostility  of  the  Beghards 
who  dwelt  in  hermitages  in  the  forest  of  Ilirsau,  and  they  con- 
spired against  the  abbot,  but  only  to  their  own  detriment.  In  14G3 
the  Synod  of  Constance  complains  of  the  unlawful  wearing  of  the 
Franciscan  scapular  by  Lollards  and  Beguines ;  all  who  do  so  are 
required  to  prove  their  right  or  to  lay  it  aside,  and  able-bodied 
Lollards  are  ordered  to  live  by  honest  labor  and  not  by  beggary. 
This  latter  practice  was  ineradicable,  however,  and  twenty  years 
later  another  synod  was  compelled  to  repeat  the  command.  In 
1491  a  synod  of  Bamberg  refers  to  the  provisions  of  the  Clemen- 
tines against  the  Beguines  as  though  their  enforcement  was  still 
called  for;  and  Friar  John  of  Moravia,  who  died  at  Briinn  in  1492, 
is  warmly  praised  as  a  fierce  and  indefatigable  persecutor  of  Hus- 
sites and  Beghards.  These  insubordinate  rehgionists  continued  to 
exist  under  almost  constant  persecution,  until  the  Keformation, 


•  Concil.  Herbipolens.  ann.  1446  (Hartzheira  V.  336).  —  Mosheim  de  Beg- 
hardis  pp.  173-9,  190,  194-5.  —  Addis  and  Arnold's  Catholic  Dictionary, 
p.  73. 


414  GERMANY. 

when  they  served  as  one  of  the  elements  which  contributed  to 
the  spread  of  Lutheranism.* 

It  was  impossible  that  Tlussitism  should  triumph  in  Bohemia 
without  awakening  an  eclio  tliroughout  Germany,  or  that  the 
Hussites  should  abstain  from  missionary  and  proselyting  efforts, 
but  the  spread  of  the  heresy  through  the  Teutonic  populations  was 
sternly  and  successfully  repressed.  In  1423  the  Council  of  Siena, 
under  the  presidency  of  papal  legates,  showed  itself  fully  alive  to 
the  danger.  It  sharply  reproved  both  inquisitors  and  episcopal 
ordinaries  for  the  supineness  which  alone  could  explain  tlie  threat- 
ening spread  of  heresy.  They  were  urged  to  constant  and  unspar- 
ing vigilance  under  pain  of  four  months'  suspension  from  entering 
a  church  and  such  other  punishment  as  might  seem  opportune. 
They  were  further  ordered  to  curse  the  heretics  with  bell,  book, 
and  candle  every  Sunday  in  all  the  principal  churches.  Holy 
Land  indulgences  were  offered  to  all  who  would  assist  them  in 
capturing  heretics,  as  well  as  to  rulers  who,  unable  to  capture 
them,  should  at  least  expel  them  from  their  territories.  The 
earnest  tone  of  the  council  reflects  the  alarm  that  was  everywhere 
felt,  and  it  unquestionably  led  to  renewed  exertions,  though  only 
a  few  instances  of  successful  activity  chance  to  be  recorded.  Thus, 
in  1420,  a  priest,  known  as  Henry  Griinfeld,  who  had  embraced 
Hussite  doctrines,  was  burned  at  Ratisbon,  where  likewise,  in  1423, 
another  priest  named  Henry  Rathgeber  met  the  same  fate.  In 
1424  a  priest  named  John  Drandorf  suffered  at  Worms,  and  in 
1426  Peter  Turman  Avas  burned  at  Speier.  Even  after  the  Council 
of  Basle  had  recognized  the  Hussites  as  orthodox,  and  under  the 
Compactata  they  enjoyed  toleration  in  states  where  they  held 
temporal  authority,  they  were  still  persecuted  as  heretics  else- 
where. About  1450  John  Midler  ventured  to  preach  Hussite 
doctrines  throughout  Franconia,  where  he  met  with  much  accept- 
ance and  gained  a  numerous  following,  but  he  was  forced  to  fly, 
and  one  hundred  and  thirty  of  his  disciples  were  seized  and  carried 
to  Wiirzburg.  There  they  were  persuaded  to  recant  by  the  Abbot 
John  of  Grumbach  and  Master  Anthony,  a  preacher  of  the  cathe- 


*  Trithera.  Chron.  Hirsaug.  aun.   1460.— Hartzheim  V.  464,  507,  560,  578. 
Wadding,  ann.  1492,  No.  8. — Martini  Append,  ad  Mosheiui  p.  579. 


HUSSITES    AND    WALDENSES,  415 

dral.  More  tragic  was  the  fate  of  Frederic  Reiser,  a  Suabian, 
educated  in  Waldensianism.  Under  the  guise  of  a  merchant  he 
had  served  as  a  preacher  among  the  Waklensian  churches  which 
maintained  a  secret  existence  throughout  Germany.  At  Ileils- 
bronn  he  was  captured  in  a  Hussite  raid,  when,  carried  to  Mount 
Tabor,  he  recognized  the  practical  identity  of  the  faiths  and  re- 
ceived ordination  at  the  hands  of  the  Taborite  Bishop  Nicholas. 
He  labored  to  bring  about  a  union  of  the  churches,  and  wandered 
as  a  missionary  through  Germany,  Bohemia,  and  Switzerland. 
Finally  he  settled  at  Strassburg,  which  was  always  a  heretic  centre, 
and  gathered  a  community  of  disciples  around  him.  He  called 
himself  "  Frederic,  by  the  grace  of  God  bishop  of  the  faithful  in 
the  Eoman  Church  who  spurn  the  Donation  of  Constantine."  He 
was  detected  in  1458  and  arrested  with  his  followers.  Under  tort- 
ure he  confessed  all  that  was  required  of  him,  only  to  withdraw 
it  when  removed  from  the  torture-chamber.  The  burgomaster, 
Hans  Drachenfels,  and  the  civic  magistracy  earnestly  opposed 
his  execution,  but  they  were  obliged  to  yield,  and  he  was  burned, 
together  with  his  faithful  servant,  Anna  Weiler,  an  old  woman  of 
Niirnberg.* 

Reiser  had  been  specially  successful  with  the  descendants  of 
the  Pomeranian  Waldenses  who,  as  we  have  seen,  abjured  before 
the  inquisitor  Peter  in  1393.  They  appear  to  have  by  no  means 
abandoned  their  heresy,  and  were  easily  brought  to  the  modifica- 
tions which  assimilated  them  to  the  Hussites— the  adoption  of 
bishops,  priests,  and  deacons,  the  communion  in  both  elements, 
and  the  honoring  of  "Wickliff,  Huss,  and  Jerome  of  Prague.  In 
this  same  year,  1458,  a  tailor  of  Selchow,  named  Mattliew  Ilagen, 
was  arrested  with  three  disciples  and  carried  to  Berlin  for  trial 
by  order  of  the  Elector  Frederic  II.  He  had  been  ordained  as  a 
priest  in  Bohemia  by  Reiser,  and  had  returned  to  propagate  the 
doctrines  of  the  sect  and  administer  its  sacraments.  His  followers 
weakened  and  abjured,  but  he  remained  steadfast,  and  was  aban- 
doned to  the  secular  arm.     To  root  out  the  sect.  Dr.  John  Canne- 


•  Concil.  Senens.  ann.  1423  (Hartluin.  VIII.  lOlC-17).— Ullinnnn's  Keforraers 
before  the  Reformation,  Menzics'  Transl.  I.  ;]83-4. — Flac.  Illyr.  Catal.  Test.  Veri- 
tatis  Lib.  xix.  p.  1836  (Ed.  1G08). — Coinl)a,  Ilistoire  dcs  Vaiidois  d'ltalic,  I.  97.— 
HoflFmann,  Gcschichte  der  Inquisition,  II.  390-1. 


416  GERMANY. 

man,  who  had  tried  Ilagen,  was  sent  to  Angermiinde  as  episcopal 
inquisitor;  he  found  many  sectaries  but  no  obstinacy,  for  they 
willingly  submitted  and  abjured.* 

There  was,  in  fact,  enough  in  common  between  the  doctrines 
of  the  more  radical  Hussites  and  those  of  the  Waldenses  to  briner 
the  sects  eventually  together.  The  Waldenses  had  by  no  means 
been  extirpated,  and  when,  in  1467,  the  remnant  of  the  Taborites 
known  as  the  Bohemian  Brethren  opened  communication  with 
them,  the  envoys  sent  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  them  on  the 
confines  between  Austria  and  Moravia,  where  they  had  existed 
for  more  than  two  centuries.  They  had  a  bishop  named  Stephen, 
who  speedily  called  in  another  bishop  to  perform  the  rite  of  ordi- 
nation for  the  Brethren,  showing  that  the  heretic  communities 
were  numerous  and  well  organized.  The  negotiations  unfortu- 
nately attracted  attention,  and  the  Church  made  short  work  of 
those  on  whom  it  could  lay  its  hands.  Bishop  Stephen  was  burned 
at  Vienna  and  the  flock  was  scattered,  many  of  them  finding 
refuge  in  Moravia.  Others  fled  as  far  as  Brandenburg,  where 
already  there  were  flourishing  Waldensian  communities.  These 
were  soon  afterwards  discovered,  and  steel,  fire,  and  water  were 
unsparingly  used  for  their  destruction,  without  blotting  them  out. 
A  portion  of  those  who  escaped  emigrated  to  Bohemia,  where  they 
were  gladly  received  by  the  Bohemian  Brethren  and  incorporated 
into  their  societies.  The  close  association  thus  formed  between 
the  Brethren  and  the  Waldenses  resulted  in  a  virtual  coalescence 
which  gave  rise  to  a  new  word  in  the  nomenclature  of  heresy. 
When,  in  1479,  Sixtus  IV.  confirmed  Friar  Thomas  Gognati  as 
Inquisitor  of  Vienna,  he  urged  him  to  put  forth  every  exertion  to 
suppress  the  Hussites  and  ISTicolinistas.  These  latter,  who  took 
their  name  from  Nicholas  of  Silesia,  were  evidently  Bohemian 
Brethren  who  adhered  to  the  extreme  doctrine  common  to  both 
sects,  that  nothing  could  justify  putting  a  human  being  to  death. 
Thus  the  struggle  continued,  and  though  the  danger  was  averted 
which  had  once  seemed  threatening,  of  the  widespread  adoption 
of  Hussite  theories,  there  remained  concealed  enough  Hussite  and 
Waldensian  hostility  to  Rome  to  serve  as  a  nucleus  of  discontent 
and  to  give  sufficient  support  to  revolt  when  a  man  was  found, 


*  Wattenbach,  Sitzungsberichte  der  Preuss.  Akad.  1886,  pp.  57-8. 


GREGORY    OF    HEIMBURG.  41  i" 

like  Luther,  bold  enough  to  clothe  in  words  the  convictions  which 
thousands  were  secretly  nursing.* 

Signs,  indeed,  were  not  wanting  in  the  fifteenth  century  or 
the  inevitable  rupture  of  the  sixteenth.  Prominent  among  those 
who  boldly  defied  the  power  of  Kome  was  Gregory  of  Heimburg, 
whom  UUman  well  designates  as  the  citizen-Luther  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  He  first  comes  into  view  at  the  Council  of  Basle,  in  the 
service  of  ^neas  Sylvius,  who  was  then  one  of  the  foremost  advo- 
cates of  the  reforming  party,  and  he  remained  steadfast  to  the 
principles  which  his  patron  bartered  for  the  papacy.  A  forerun- 
ner of  the  Humanists,  he  labored  to  diffuse  classical  culture,  and 
with  his  admiration  for  the  ancients  he  had,  like  Marsiglio  of  Padua , 
imbibed  the  imperial  theory  of  the  relations  between  Church  and 
State.  With  tongue  and  pen  inspired  by  dauntless  courage  he  was 
indefatigable  to  the  last  in  maintaining  the  rights  of  the  empire 
and  the  supremacy  of  general  councils.  The  power  of  the  keys, 
he  taught,  had  been  granted  to  the  apostles  collectively ;  these 
were  represented  by  general  councils,  and  the  monopoly  in  the 
hands  of  the  pope  was  a  usurpation.  His  free  expression  of  opin- 
ion infallibly  brought  him  into  collision  with  his  early  patron,  and 
the  antagonism  was  sharpened  when  Pius  II.  convoked  the  assem- 
bly of  princes  at  Mantua  to  provide  for  a  new  crusade.  Gregory, 
who  was  there  as  counsellor  of  the  princes,  boldly  declared  that 
this  was  only  a  scheme  to  augment  the  papal  power  and  drain  all 
Germany  of  money.  When  Nicholas  of  Cusa,  a  time-server  like 
Pius,  was  appointed  Bishop  of  Brixen  and  claimed  property  and 
rights  regarded  by  Sigismund  of  Austria  as  belonging  to  himself, 
Sigismund,  under  Gregory's  advice,  arrested  the  bishop.  There- 
upon Pius,  in  June,  l-iGO,  laid  Sigismund's  territories  under  inter- 
dict, and  induced  the  Swiss  to  attack  him.  Gregory  drew  u]) 
an  appeal  to  a  general  council,  which  Sigismund  issued,  although 
Pius  had  forbidden  such  appeals,  and  he  further  had  the  hardihood 
to  prove  by  Scripture,  the  fathers,  and  history,  that  the  Church 
was  subject  to  the  State.  It  was  no  wonder  that  Gregory  shared 
his  master's  excommunication.  In  October,  1-160,  he  was  declared 
a  heretic,  and  all  the  faithful  were  ordered  to  seize  his  property 


•  Hist.  Persccut.  Ecclcs.  Bohem.  pp.  71-2  (s.  1.  1G48).— Camerarii  Hist,  Frat. 
Orthodox,  pp.  116-17  (IIcidclberga3,  1G05).— RipoU  III.  577. 

IL— 27 


4:18  GERMANY. 

and  punish  him.  To  this  he  responded  in  vigorous  appeals  and 
replications,  couched  in  the  most  insolent  and  contemptuous  lan- 
guage towards  both  Pius  and  Nicholas.  In  October,  1461,  Pius 
sent  Friar  Martin  of  Rotenburg  to  preach  the  faith  and  preserve 
the  faithful  from  the  errors  of  Sigismund  and  his  heresiarch  Greg- 
ory, and,  professing  to  believe  that  Martin  was  in  personal  danger, 
he  offered  an  indulgence  of  two  years  and  eighty  days  to  all  who 
would  render  him  assistance  in  his  need,  lie  also  ordered  the 
magistrates  of  JSTiirnburg  to  seize  Gregory's  property  and  expel 
him  or  deliver  him  up  for  punishment.  We  next  find  Gregory 
aiding  Diether,  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  in  his  quarrel  with  Pius 
over  the  unprecedented  and  extortionate  demand  of  the  Holy  See 
for  annates ;  but  Diether  resigned,  Sigismund  made  his  peace,  and 
Gregory  was  abandoned  to  his  excommunication,  even  the  city  of 
Niirnburg  withdrawing  its  protection.  He  then  took  refuge  in 
Bohemia  wdth  George  Podiebrad,  whom  he  served  efficiently  as  a 
controversialist,  earning  a  special  denunciation  as  a  heretic  of  the 
worst  type  from  Paul  IL,  in  1469 ;  but  Podiebrad  died  in  1471. 
Gregory  then  w^ent  to  Saxony,  where  Duke  Albert  protected  him 
and  effected  his  reconciliation  with  Sixtus  IV.  He  was  absolved 
at  Easter,  1472,  only  to  die  in  the  following  August,  after  spend- 
ing a  quarter  of  a  century  in  ceaseless  combat  with  the  papacy.* 

If  Gregory  of  Heimburg  embodies  the  revolt  of  the  ruling 
classes  against  Pome,  Hans  of  Niklaushausen  shows  us  the  rest- 
less spirit  of  opposition  to  sacerdotalism  which  w^as  spreading 
among  the  lower  strata  of  society.  Hans  Boheim  w^as  a  wander- 
ing drummer  or  fifer  from  Bohemia,  who  chanced  to  settle  at  M- 
klaushausen,  near  Wiirzburg.  He  doubtless  brought  with  him  the 
revolutionary  ideas  of  the  Hussites,  and  he  seems  to  have  entered 
into  an  alliance  with  the  parish  priest  and  a  Mendicant  Friar  or 
Beghard.  He  began  to  have  revelations  from  the  Virgin  which 
suited  so  exactly  the  popular  wishes  that  crowds  speecUly  began 
to  assemble  to  listen  to  him.  She  instructed  him  to  announce  to 
her  people  that  Christ  could  no  longer  endm^e  the  pride,  the  avarice, 


*  Ullmann,  op.  cit.  I.  195-207.— JSn.  Sylvii  Epist.  400  (0pp.  1571,  p.  932).— 
Fasciculus  Rerum  Expetendarum  et  Fugiendurum  II.  115-28  (Ed.  1690). — Freber 
et  Struv.  II.  187-266.— Wadding,  aun.  1461,  No.  5.— Ripoll  III.  466.— Chron. 
Glassberger  ann.  1462. 


HANS    OF    NIKLAUSHAUSEN.  419 

and  the  lust  of  the  priesthood,  and  that  the  workl  would  be  de- 
stroyed in  consequence  of  their  wickedness,  unless  they  promptly 
showed  signs  of  amendment.  Tithes  and  tribute  should  be  purely 
voluntary,  tolls  and  customs  dues  were  to  be  abolished,  and  game 
was  no  longer  to  be  preserved.  As  the  fame  of  these  revelations 
spread,  crowds  flocked  to  hear  the  inspired  teacher,  from  the  Rhine^ 
lands,  Bavaria,  Thuringia,  Saxony,  and  Misnia,  so  that  at  times  he 
addressed  an  audience  of  twenty  thousand  to  thirty  thousand  souls. 
So  great  was  the  reverence  felt  for  him  that  those  who  could 
touch  him  deemed  themselves  sanctified,  and  fragments  of  his 
garments  were  treasured  as  relics,  so  that  his  clothes  were  rent  in 
pieces  whenever  he  appeared,  and  a  new  suit  was  requisite  daily. 
That  no  one  doubted  the  truth  of  the  Virgin's  denunciations  of 
the  clergy  shows  the  nature  of  the  popular  estimation  of  the 
Church,  for  the  vast  crowds  who  came  eagerly  to  listen  were  by 
no  means  composed  of  the  dangerous  elements  of  society.  They 
were  peaceful  and  orderly ;  men  and  women  slept  in  the  neigh- 
boring fields  and  woods  and  caves  without  fear  of  robbery  or 
violence ;  they  had  money  to  spend,  moreover,  for  the  offerings 
of  gold  and  silver,  jewels,  garments,  and  wax  were  large — large 
enough,  indeed,  to  tempt  the  greed  of  the  potentates,  for  after  the 
downfall  of  Hans  the  spoils  were  divided  between  the  Count  of 
Wertheim,  suzerain  of  Niklaushausen,  the  Bishop  of  Wiirzburg, 
and  his  metropolitan,  the  Archbishop  of  Mainz.  The  latter  used 
a  portion  of  his  plunder  in  building  a  citadel  near  Mainz,  the  de- 
struction of  which  soon  afterwards  by  fire  was  generally  regarded 
as  indicating  the  displeasure  of  the  Virgin. 

Bishop  Rudolph  of  Wiirzburg  repeatedly  forbade  the  pilgrim- 
age to  Niklausliausen,  but  in  vain,  and  at  length  he  was  led  to 
take  more  decided  steps.  The  great  festivity  of  the  region  was 
the  feast  of  St.  Kilian,  the  martyr  of  Wiirzburg,  falling  on  July  8. 
On  the  Sunday  previous,  July  6,  1476,  Hans  significantly  told  his 
audience  to  return  the  following  Saturday  armed,  but  to  leave 
their  women  and  children  at  home.  Matters  were  evidently  ap- 
proaching a  crisis,  and  the  bishop  did  not  wait  for  tlie  result,  but 
sent  a  party  of  guards,  who  seized  Hans  and  conveyed  him  to  a 
neighboring  stronghold.  The  next  day  about  six  thousand  of  his 
deluded  followers,  including  many  women  and  children,  set  out 
for  the  castle,  without  arms,  believing  that  its  walls  would  fall  at 


420  GERMANY. 

their  demand.  They  refused  to  disperse  when  summoned,  but 
were  readily  scattered  by  a  sally  of  men-at-arms,  supported  by  a 
discharge  from  the  cannon  of  the  castle,  in  w^hich  many  were  slain. 
Hans  was  easily  forced  by  torture  to  confess  the  falsity  of  his  rev- 
elations and  the  deceits  by  which  he  and  his  confederates  had 
stimulated  the  excitement  by  false  miracles ;  but  his  confession 
did  not  avail  him,  and  he  was  condemned  to  be  burned.  At  the 
place  of  execution  his  followers  expected  divine  interference,  and 
to  prevent  enchantment  the  executioner  shaved  him  from  head  to 
foot.  He  walked  resolutely  to  the  stake,  singing  a  hymn,  but  his 
fortitude  gave  w^ay  and  he  shrieked  in  agony  as  the  flames  reached 
him.  To  prevent  his  ashes  from  being  treasured  as  relics,  they 
were  carefully  collected  and  cast  into  the  river.  The  priest  and 
Beghard  who  had  served  as  his  confederates  sought  safety  in 
flight,  but  w^ere  caught  and  confessed,  after  which  they  were  dis- 
charged ;  but  two  peasants — one  who  had  suggested  the  advance 
upon  the  castle  and  one  who  had  wounded  the  horse  of  one  of  the 
guards  who  captured  Hans — were  beheaded.* 

If  Gregory  of  Heimburg  and  Hans  of  ISTiklaushausen  repre- 
sent the  antagonism  to  Rome  which  pervaded  the  laity  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest,  John  von  Ruchrath  of  AVesel  indicates  that 
even  in  the  Church  the  same  spirit  was  not  wanting.  One  of  the 
most  eminent  theologians  and  preachers  of  whom  Germany  could 
boast,  celebrated  in  the  schools  as  the  "  Light  of  the  World  "  and 
the  "  Master  of  Contradictions,"  he  was  a  hardy  and  somewhat 
violent  disputant,  who  in  his  sermons  had  no  scruple  in  presenting 
his  opinions  in  the  most  offensive  shape.  Like  Luther,  of  whom 
he  was  the  true  precursor,  he  commenced  by  an  assault  upon  in- 
dulgences, moved  thereto  by  the  Jubilee  of  1450,  when  pious  Eu- 
rope precipitated  itself  upon  Rome  to  take  heaven  by  assault. 
Step  by  step  he  advanced  to  strip  the  Church  of  its  powers,  and 
was  led  to  reject  the  authority  of  tradition  and  the  fathers,  recur- 
ring to  Scripture  as  the  sole  basis  of  authority.  He  even  banished 
from  the  creed  the  word  "  Filioque^''  and  his  predestinarian  views 
deprived  the  Church  of  all  the  treasures  of  salvation.  How  little 
he  recked  of  the  feelings  of  those  w^hose  faith  he  assailed  is  seen 
in  his  remark  that  if  fasting  was  instituted  by  St.  Peter,  it  was 
probably  to  obtain  a  better  market  for  his  fish. 

•  Trithem.  Chron.  Hirsaug.  aun.  1476. — Ullmann,  op.  cit.  I.  377  sqq. 


JOHN    OF    WES  EL.  421 

It  shows  how  rusty  had  become  the  machinery  of  persecution  and 
the  latitude  allowed  to  free  speech  that  John  of  Wesel  was  per- 
mitted so  long,  without  interference,  to  ripen  into  a  heresiarch  and 
to  disseminate  from  the  pulpit  and  professorial  chair  these  opin- 
ions, as  dangerous  as  any  emitted  by  Waldenses,  Wickliffites,  or 
Hussites.  In  fact,  but  for  the  bitter  quarrel  between  the  Realists 
and  Nominalists,  which  fiUed  the  scholastic  world  with  strife,  it 
is  probable  that  he  would  have  been  unmolested  to  the  end  and 
enabled  to  close  his  days  in  peace.  He  was  a  leader  of  the  Nom- 
inahsts,  and  the  Dominican  Thomists  of  Mainz  were  resolved  to, 
silence  him.  The  Archbishop  of  Mainz  was  Diether  of  Isenburg, 
who  had  been  forced  to  abandon  his  see  in  1463,  but  had  resumed 
it  in  1475  on  the  death  of  his  competitor,  Adolph  of  IN^assau  ;  he  did 
not  wish  another  conflict  with  Rome,  to  which  he  was  exposed  in 
consequence  of  his  public  denunciations  of  the  papal  auctions  of 
the  archiepiscopal  pallium  ;  he  was  threatened  with  this  unless  he 
would  surrender  John  of  Wesel  as  a  victim,  and  he  yielded  to  the 
pressure  in  1479. 

In  the  great  province  of  Mainz  there  was  no  inquisitor ;  trial 
by  the  regular  episcopal  officials  would  be  of  uncertain  result; 
and  as  there  Avas  a  Dominican  inquisitor  at  Cologne,  in  the  person 
of  Friar  Gerhard  von  Elten,  he  was  sent  for.  He  came,  accom- 
panied by  Friar  Jacob  Sprenger,  not  yet  an  inquisitor,  but  whom 
we  shall  see  hereafter  in  that  capacity  busy  in  burning  witches. 
With  him  came  the  theologians  from  the  universities  of  Heidel- 
berg and  Cologne,  who  were  to  sit  as  experts  and  assessors,  and 
so  carefully  were  they  selected  that  one  of  the  Heidelberg  doc- 
tors, to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  an  account  of  the  proceedings, 
tells  us  that  among  them  all  there  was  but  one  Nominahst.  He 
evidently  regards  the  whole  matter  as  an  incident  in  the  scholas- 
tic strife,  and  says  that  the  accused  would  have  been  acquitted  had 
he  been  allowed  counsel  and  had  he  not  been  so  harshly  treated. 

The  proceedings  are  a  curious  travesty  of  the  inquisitorial  proc- 
ess, which  show  that,  however  much  its  forms  had  been  forgot- 
ten, the  principle  was  rigidly  maintained  of  treating  the  accused 
as  guilty  in  advance.  There  was  no  secrecy  attempted ;  every- 
thing was  conducted  in  an  assembly  consisting  of  laymen  as  well 
as  ecclesiastics,  prominent  among  whom  we  recognize  the  Count 
of  Wertheim,  fresh  from  tlic  plunder  of  Hans  of  JS'ililaushausen. 


422  GERMANY. 

After  a  preliminary  meeting,  when  the  assembly  convened  for 
business,  February  8,  1479,  the  inquisitor  von  Elten  presided, 
with  Archbishop  Diether  under  him,  and  opened  the  proceedings 
by  suggesting  that  two  or  three  friends  of  the  accused  should 
Avarn  him  to  repent  of  his  errors  and  beg  for  mercy,  in  which  case 
he  should  have  mercy,  but  otherwise  not.  A  deputation  was 
thereupon  despatched,  but  their  mission  was  not  speedily  per- 
formed ;  the  inquisitor  chafed  at  the  delay,  and  began  blustering 
and  threatening.  A  high  official  was  sent  to  hurry  the  matter, 
but  at  that  moment  John  of  Wesel  entered,  pallid,  bent  with  age, 
leaning  on  his  staff,  and  supported  by  two  Franciscans.  lie  was 
made  to  sit  on  the  floor ;  von  Elten  repeated  to  him  the  message, 
and  when  he  attempted  to  defend  himself  he  was  cut  short,  badg- 
ered and  threatened,  until  he  was  brought  to  sue  for  pardon. 
After  this  he  was  put  through  a  long  and  exhausting  examina- 
tion, and  was  finally  remanded  until  the  next  day.  A  commission 
consisting  principally  of  the  Cologne  and  Heidelberg  doctors  was 
appointed  to  determine  w^hat  should  be  done  with  him.  The 
next  day  he  was  again  brought  out  and  examined  afresh,  when  he 
endeavored  to  defend  his  views.  "  If  all  men  renounce  Christ," 
he  said,  "  I  will  stiU  worship  him  and  be  a  Christian,"  to  which 
von  Elten  retorted,  "  So  say  all  heretics,  even  when  at  the  stake." 
FinaUy  it  was  resolved  that  three  doctors  should  be  deputed, 
piously  to  exhort  him  to  abandon  his  errors.  As  in  the  case  of 
Huss,  it  was  not  his  death  that  was  wanted,  but  his  humihation. 

On  the  10th  the  deputies  labored  with  him.  "  If  Christ  were 
here,"  he  told  them,  "  and  were  treated  like  me,  you  would  con- 
demn him  as  a  heretic — but  he  would  get  the  better  of  you  with 
his  subtlety."  At  length  he  was  persuaded  to  acknowledge  that 
his  views  were  erroneous,  on  the  deputies  agreeing  to  take  the  re- 
sponsibility on  their  own  consciences.  He  had  long  been  sick 
when  the  trial  was  commenced,  all  assistance  was  withheld  from 
him ;  age,  weakness,  and  the  dark  and  filthy  dungeon  from  which 
he  had  vainly  begged  to  be  relieved  broke  down  his  powers  of  re- 
sistance, and  he  submitted.  He  publicly  recanted  and  abjured, 
his  books  were  burned  before  his  face,  and  he  was  sentenced  to 
imprisonment  for  life  in  the  Augustinian  monastery  of  Mainz. 
He  did  not  long  survive  his  mortification  and  misery,  for  he  died 
in  1481.     The  trial  excited  great  interest  among  all  the  scholars 


JOHN    REUCHLIN.  4,23 

of  Germany,  who  were  shocked  at  this  treatment  of  a  man  so 
eminent  and  distinguished.  Yet  his  writings  survived  him  and 
proved  greatly  encouraging  to  the  early  Reformers.  Melanchthon 
enumerates  him  among  those  who  by  their  works  kept  wo  the 
continuity  of  the  Church  of  Christ.* 

It  is  evident  from  this  case  that  the  Inquisition,  though  not 
extinct  in  Germany,  was  not  in  working  order,  and  that  even 
where  it  existed  nominally  a  special  effort  was  requisite  to  make 
it  function.  Still  we  hear  occasionally  of  the  appointment  of  in- 
quisitors, and  from  the  career  of  Sprenger  we  know  that  their  la- 
bors could  be  fruitfully  directed  to  the  extirpation  of  witchcraft. 
Sorcery,  indeed,  had  become  the  most  threatening  heresy  of  the 
time,  and  other  spiritual  aberrations  were  attracting  little  atten- 
tion. In  the  elaborate  statutes  issued  by  the  Synod  of  Bamberg, 
in  1491,  the  section  devoted  to  heresy  dwells  at  much  length  on 
the  details  of  witchcraft  and  magic,  and  mentions  only  one  other 
doctrinal  error — the  vitiation  of  sacraments  in  polluted  hands — 
and  it  directs  that  all  who  neglect  to  denounce  heretics  are  to  be 
themselves  treated  as  accomplices,  but  it  makes  no  allusion  to  the 
Inquisition.  Still  there  is  an  occasional  manifestation  showing 
that  inquisitors  existed  and  sometimes  exercised  their  powers. 
I  shall  hereafter  have  occasion  to  refer  to  the  case  of  Herman  of 
Ryswick,  who  was  condemned  and  abjured  in  1499,  escaped  from 
prison,  and  was  burned  as  a  relapsed  by  the  inquisitor  at  The 
Hague,  in  1512,  and  only  allude  to  it  liere  as  an  evidence  of  con- 
tinued inquisitorial  activity.f 

The  persecution  of  John  Reuchlin,  like  that  of  John  of  Wesel, 
sprang  from  scholastic  antagonisms,  but  its  development  shows 
how  completely,  during  the  interval,  the  inquisitorial  power  had 
wasted  away.  Reuchlin  was  a  pupil  of  John  Wessel  of  Groningen ; 
as  the  leader  of  the  Humanists,  and  the  foremost  representative  in 
Germany  of  the  new  learning,  he  was  involved  in  bitter  contro- 
versy with  the  Dominicans,  who,  as  traditional  Thomists,  were 
ready  to  do  battle  to  the  death  for  scholasticism.     The  ferocious 


*  D'Argentrfe  I.ii.  291-8.— Ullmann,  op.cit.  I.  258-9, 277-94, 356-7.— Trithem. 
Chron.  Ilirsaug.  aun.  1479.— Conr.  Ursperg.  Chron.  Coutinuat.  aim.  1479. — Me- 
laochthon.  Respons.  ad  Bavar.  Inquis.,  V^ltebergae,  1559,  Sig.  B  3. 

t  RipoU  IV.  5.— Synod  Bamberg,  nnu.  1491,  Tit.  44  (Ludewig  Scriptt.  Ren 
Germ.  I.  1242-44).— D'Aigcntie  I.  ii.  342. 


424  GERMANY. 

jocularity  with  which  Sebastian  Brandt  dilates,  in  his  most  finished 
Latinity,  upon  the  torture  and  burning  of  four  Dominicans  at 
Berne,  in  1509,  for  frauds  committed  in  the  controversy  over  the 
Immaculate  Conception,  indicates  the  temper  which  animated  the 
hostile  parties,  even  as  its  lighter  aspect  is  seen  in  the  unsparing 
satire  of  Erasmus  and  of  the  Epistolce  Ohscurorum  Virorum. 
When,  therefore,  Reuchlin  stood  forward  to  protect  Jews  and 
Jewish  literature  against  the  assaults  of  the  renegade  Pfefferkorn, 
the  opportunity  to  destroy  him  was  eagerly  seized.  In  1513  a 
Dominican  inquisitor,  the  Prior  Jacob  von  Hochstraten,  came 
from  Cologne  to  Mainz  on  an  errand  precisely  similar  to  that  of 
his  predecessor  von  Elten.  Unlike  John  of  Wesel,  however, 
Reuchlin  felt  that  he  could  safely  appeal  to  Rome,  where  Leo  X. 
was  himself  a  man  of  culture  and  a  Humanist,  Leo  was  well  dis- 
posed, and  commissioned  the  Bishop  of  Speier  to  decide  the  ques- 
tion, which  was  in  itself  a  direct  blow  at  the  inquisitorial  power. 
Still  more  contemptuously  damaging  was  the  bishop's  judgment. 
Eeuchlin  was  declared  free  of  all  suspicion  of  heresy,  the  prosecu- 
tion was  pronounced  frivolous,  and  the  costs  were  put  upon  Hoch- 
straten, with  a  threat  of  excommunication  for  disobedience.  This 
was  confirmed  at  Rome,  in  1415,  where  silence  was  imposed  on 
Reuchlin' s  accusers  under  a  penalty  of  three  thousand  marks.  The 
Humanists  celebrated  their  victory  with  savage  rejoicing.  Eleu- 
therius  Bizenus  printed  a  tract  summoning,  in  rugged  hexameters, 
aU  Germany  to  assist  in  the  triumph  of  Reuclilin,  in  which  Hoch- 
straten— that  thief,  who  as  accuser  and  judge  persecutes  the  in- 
nocent— marches  in  chains,  with  his  hands  tied  behind  his  back, 
while  Pfefferkorn,  with  ears  and  nose  cut  off,  is  dragged  hy  a  hook 
through  his  heels,  face  downwards,  until  his  features  lose  the  sem- 
blance of  humanity.  The  Dominicans  are  characterized  as  worse 
than  Turks,  and  more  worthy  to  be  resisted,  and  the  author  won- 
ders what  unjust  pope  and  cowardly  emperor  had  enabled  them 
to  impose  their  yoke  on  the  land.  These  were  brave  words,  but 
premature.  The  quarrel  had  attracted  the  attention  of  aU  Europe, 
the  Dominican  Order  itself  and  aU  it  represented  were  on  trial, 
and  it  could  not  afford  to  submit  to  defeat.  Hochstraten  hastened 
to  Rome ;  the  Dominicans  of  the  great  University  of  Cologne  did 
not  hesitate  to  say  that  if  the  pope  maintained  the  sentence  they 
would  appeal  to  the  future  council,  they  would  refuse  to  abide  by 


THE    INQUISITION    USELESS.  425 

his  decision,  they  would  pronounce  him  to  be  no  pope  and  organ- 
ize  a  schism,  and  much  more,  which  shows  upon  what  a  slender 
tenure  the  papacy  held  the  allegiance  of  its  Janissaries.  Leo  cow- 
ered before  the  storm  which  he  had  provoked,  and  in  1416  he 
issued  a  mandate  superseding  the  sentence,  but  the  spirit  of  insub- 
ordination was  growing  strong  in  Germany,  and  Franz  von  Sick- 
ingen,  the  free-lance,  compelled  its  observance.  As  the  Lutheran 
revolt  grew  more  threatening,  however,  the  support  of  the  Domin- 
icans became  more  and  more  indispensable,  and  in  1420  Leo  settled 
the  matter  by  setting  aside  the  decision  of  the  Bishop  of  Speier, 
imposing  silence  on  Reuchlin,  and  laying  all  the  costs  on  him. 
Hochstraten,  moreover,  was  restored  to  his  office.* 

The  reparation  came  too  late  to  render  the  Inquisition  of  any 
service,  now  that  its  efficiency  was  more  sorely  needed  than  ever 
before.  Had  it  existed  in  Germany  in  good  working  order,  Lu- 
ther's career  would  have  been  short.  When,  October  31,  1517,  he 
nailed  his  propositions  concerning  indulgences  on  the  church-door 
of  Wittenberg,  and  publicly  defended  them,  an  inquisitor  such  as 
Bernard  Gui  would  have  speedily  silenced  him,  either  destroying 
his  influence  by  forcing  him  to  a  public  recantation,  or  handing 
him  over  to  be  burned  if  he  proved  obstinate.  Hundreds  of  hardy 
thinkers  had  been  thus  served,  and  the  few  who  had  been  found 
stout  enough  to  withstand  the  methods  of  the  Holy  Office  had 
perished.  Fortunately,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Inquisition  never  had 
struck  root  in  German  soil,  and  now  it  was  thoroughly  discredited 
and  useless.  Hochstraten's  hands  were  tied ;  Doctor  John  Eck, 
inquisitor  for  Bavaria  and  Franconia,  was  himself  a  Humanist,  who 
could  argue  and  threaten,  but  could  not  act. 

In  France  the  University  had  taken  the  place  of  the  almost 
forgotten  Inquisition,  repressing  all  aberrations  of  faith,  while  a 
centralized  monarchy  had  rendered — at  least  until  the  Concordat 
of  Francis  I. — the  national  Church  in  a  great  degree  independent 
of  the  papacy.  In  Germany  there  was  no  national  Church ;  there 
was  subjection  to  Rome  which  was  growing  unendurable  for 


♦  Pauli  Langii  Chron.  Citicens.  (Pistorii  Rer.  Germ.  Scriptt.  I.  1276-6).  — 
Gieseler,  Lehrbuch  derKircbengescbichte  II.  iv.  532  sq. — Herzog,  Abriss,  II.  397- 
401. — SpalatiniAnnal.ann.  1515  (Menken.  11.591). — Eleutb.  Bizeni  Joannis  Reuch- 
lin  Encomion  (sine  nota,  sed  c.  ann.  15 IG). — II.  Corn.  Agrippa;  Epist.  ii.  54. 


426  GERMANY. 

financial  reasons,  but  there  was  nothing  to  take  the  place  of  the 
Inquisition,  and  a  latitude  of  speech  had  become  customary  whicli 
was  tolerated  so  long  as  the  revenues  of  St.  Peter  were  not  inter- 
fered with.  This  perhaps  explains  why  the  significance  of  Luther's 
revolt  was  better  appreciated  at  Rome  than  on  the  spot.  After 
he  had  been  formally  declared  a  heretic  by  the  Auditor-general 
of  the  Apostolic  Chamber  at  the  instance  of  the  promotor  fiscal, 
the  legate,  Cardinal  Caietano,  wrote  that  he  could  terminate  the 
matter  himself,  and  that  it  was  rather  a  trifling  affair  to  be  brought 
before  the  pope.  He  did  not  fulfil  his  instructions  to  arrest  Luther 
and  teU  him  that  if  he  would  appear  before  the  Holy  See,  to  excuse 
himself,  he  would  be  treated  with  undeserved  clemency.  After 
the  scandal  had  been  growing  for  a  twelvemonth,  Leo  again  wrote 
to  Caietano  to  summon  Doctor  Martin  before  him,  and,  after  dili- 
gent examination,  to  condemn  or  absolve  him  as  might  prove 
requisite.  It  was  now  too  late.  Insubordination  had  spread,  and 
rebellion  was  organizing  itself.  Before  these  last  instructions 
reached  Caietano,  Luther  came  in  answer  to  a  previous  summons, 
but,  though  he  professed  himself  in  all  things  an  obedient  son  of 
the  Church,  he  practically  manifested  an  ominous  independence, 
and  was  conveyed  away  unharmed.  The  legate  trusted  to  his 
powers  as  a  disputant  rather  than  to  force ;  and  had  he  attempted 
the  latter,  he  had  no  machinery  at  hand  to  frustrate  the  instructions 
given  by  the  Augsburg  magistrates  for  Luther's  protection.  In 
the  paralysis  of  persecution  the  inevitable  revolution  went  for- 
ward.* _^ 

*  RipoU  IV.  378.— Lutheri    0pp.,  Jense,  1564,  I.  185   sqq.— Henke,  Neuere 
Kirchengeschichte,  I.  43-6. 


CHAPTEK  VII. 

BOHEMIA. 

There  is  no  historical  foundation  for  the  legend  that  Peter 
Waldo's  missionary  labors  carried  him  into  Bohemia,  where  he 
died,  but  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  Waldensian  heresy 
found  a  foothold  among  the  Czechs  at  a  comparatively  early  date. 
Bohemia  formed  part  of  the  great  archi episcopal  province  of  Mainz, 
whose  metropolitan  could  exercise  but  an  ineffective  supervision 
over  a  district  so  distant.  The  supremacy  of  Rome  pressed  lightly 
on  its  turbulent  ecclesiastics.  In  the  last  decade  of  the  twelfth 
century  a  papal  legate,  Cardinal  Pietro,  sent  thither  to  levy  a 
tithe  for  the  recovery  of  the  Holy  Land,  was  scandalized  to  find 
that  the  law  of  celibacy  was  unknown  to  the  secular  priesthood ; 
he  did  not  venture  to  force  it  on  those  already  in  orders,  and  his 
efforts  to  make  postulants  take  the  vow  of  continence  provoked 
a  tumult  which  required  severe  measures  of  suppression.  In  a 
Church  thus  partially  independent  the  abuses  which  stimulated  re- 
volt elsewhere  might  perhaps  be  absent,  but  the  field  for  missionary 
labor  lay  open  and  unguarded.* 

We  have  seen  how  the  Inquisitor  of  Passau,  about  the  middle 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  describes  the  flourishing  condition  of 
the  AValdensian  churches  in  Austria,  along  the  borders  of  Bohemia 
and  Moravia,  and  the  intense  zeal  of  propagandism  which  ani- 
mated their  members.  Close  to  the  west,  moreover,  they  were  to 
be  found  in  the  diocese  of  Ratisbon.  That  the  heresy  should  cross 
the  boundary  line  was  inevitable,  and  it  ran  little  risk  of  detec- 
tion and  persecution  by  a  worldly  and  slothful  ])riestliood,  until  it 
gained  strength  enough  to  declare  itself  openly.  The  alarm  was 
first  sounded  by  Innocent  IV.  in  1245,  who  summoned  the  prelates 


Dubrav.  Hist.  Bohem.  Lib.  14  (Ed.  1587,  pp.  380-l> 


428  BOHEMIA. 

of  Hungary  to  intervene,  as  those  of  Bohemia  apparently  were  not 
to  be  depended  upon,  and  there  was  evidently  no  inquisitorial  ma- 
chinery which  could  be  employed.  Innocent  describes  the  heresy 
as  established  so  firmly  and  widely  that  it  embraced  not  only  the 
simple  folk,  but  also  princes  and  magnates,  and  it  was  so  elabo- 
rately organized  that  it  had  a  chief  who  was  reverenced  as  pope. 
These  are  all  declared  excommunicate,  their  lands  confiscated  for 
the  benefit  of  the  first  occupant,  and  any  who  shall  relapse  after 
recantation  are  to  be  abandoned  to  the  secular  arm  without  a  hear- 
ing, in  accordance  with  the  canons.* 

We  have  no  means  of  knowing  whether  any  action  was  taken 
in  consequence  of  this  decree,  but  if  efforts  were  made  they  did 
not  succeed  in  eradicating  the  heresy.  In  1257  King  Premysl 
Otokar  II.  applied  to  Alexander  lY.  for  aid  in  its  suppression, 
as  it  continued  to  spread,  and  to  this  request  was  due  the  first 
introduction  of  the  Inquisition  in  Bohemia.  Two  Franciscans, 
Lambert  the  German  and  Bartholomew  lector  in  Briinn,  received 
the  papal  commission  as  inquisitors  throughout  Bohemia  and  Mo- 
ravia. It  is  fair  to  assume  that  they  did  their  duty,  but  no  traces 
of  their  activity  have  reached  us,  nor  is  there  any  evidence  that 
their  places  were  filled  when  they  died  or  retired.  The  Inquisi- 
tion may  be  considered  as  non-existent,  and  when,  after  a  long  in- 
terval, we  again  hear  of  persecution,  it  is  in  a  shape  that  shows 
that  the  Bishop  of  Prague,  like  his  metropohtan  of  Mainz,  was  not 
disposed  to  in\ate  papal  encroachments  on  his  jurisdiction.  In 
1301  a  synod  of  Prague  deplored  the  spread  of  heresy  and  ordered 
every  one  cognizant  of  it  to  give  information  to  the  episcopal  in- 
quisitors, from  which  we  may  infer  that  heretics  were  active,  that 
they  had  been  little  disturbed,  and  that  the  elaborate  legislation 


*  Palacky,  Beziehungen  der  Waldenser,  Prag,  1869,  p.  10.  —  Potthast  No. 
11818. 

Palacky  (pp.  7-8)  conjectures  that  these  heretics  were  Cathari,  but  his  reason- 
ing is  quite  inadequate  to  overcome  the  greater  probability  that  they  were  of 
Waldensian  origin.  He  is,  however,  doubtless  correct  in  suggesting  that  the  al- 
lusion to  princes  and  magnates  may  properly  connect  the  movement  with  the 
commencement  of  the  conspiracy  which  finally  dethroned  King  Wenceslas  I.  in 
1253.  Wenceslas  was  a  zealous  adherent  of  the  papacy  and  opponent  of  Frederic 
II.,  and  the  connection  between  antipapal  politics  and  heresy  was  too  close  for 
US  to  discriminate  between  them  without  more  details  than  we  possess. 


WALDENSES    AND    LUCIFERANS.  429 

elsewhere  in  force  for  the  detection  and  punishment  of  heresy  was 
virtually  unknown  in  Bohemia.* 

In  1318  John  of  Drasic,  the  Bishop  of  Prague,  was  summoned 
to  Avignon  by  John  XXII.  to  answer  accusations  brought  against 
him  by  Frederic  of  Schonberg,  Canon  of  Wyschehrad,  as  a  fautor 
of  heresy.  The  complaint  set  forth  that  heretics  were  so  numer- 
ous that  they  had  an  archbishop  and  seven  bishops,  each  of  whom 
had  three  hundred  disciples.  The  description  of  their  faith  Avould 
seem  to  indicate  that  there  were  both  Waldenses  and  Luciferans — 
the  latter  forming  part  of  the  sect  w^hich  we  have  seen  described 
about  this  time  as  flourishing  in  Austria,  where  they  are  said  to 
have  been  introduced  by  missionaries  from  Bohemia — and  that 
their  doctrines  have  been  commingled.  They  are  described  as 
considering  oaths  unlawful ;  confession  and  absolution  could  be 
administered  indifferently  by  layman  or  priest ;  rebaptism  was 
allowed ;  the  divine  unity  and  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  were 
denied ;  Jesus  had  only  a  phantasmic  body ;  and  Lucifer  was  ex- 
pected finally  to  reign.  Of  course  there  were  also  the  customary 
accusations  of  sexual  excesses  committed  in  nocturnal  assemblies 
held  in  caverns,  which  only  proves  that  there  was  sufficient  dread 
of  persecution  to  prevent  the  congregations  from  meeting  openly. 
The  good  bishop,  it  appears,  only  permitted  these  wretches  to  be 
arraigned  by  his  inquisitors  after  repeated  pressure  from  John  of 
Luxembourg,  the  king.  Fourteen  of  them  were  convicted  and 
handed  over  to  the  secular  arm,  but  the  bishop  interfered,  to  the 
great  disgust  of  the  king,  and  forcibly  released  them,  except  a 
physician  named  Kichard,  who  was  imprisoned  ;  the  bishop,  more- 
over, discharged  the  inquisitors,  who  evidently  were  his  own  offi- 
cials and  not  papal  appointees.  These  were  serious  offences  on  the 
part  of  a  prelate,  and  he  expiated  his  lenity  by  a  confinement  of 
several  years  in  Avignon.  Possibly  his  hostility  to  the  Francis- 
cans may  have  rendered  him  an  object  of  attack.f 

Papal  attention  being  thus  called  to  the  existence  of  heresy  in 


*  Wadding,  ann.  1257,  No.  16.  — Potthast  No.  16819. —  Ilofler,  Prager  Con- 
cilien,  Einleitung,  p.  xix. 

t  Palacky,  op.  cit.  pp.  11-13. — Sclirodl,  Passavia  8acra,  Pasaau,  1879,  p.  243. — 
Dubravius  (Hist.  Bohem.  Lib.  20)  relates  that  in  1315  King  John  burned  fourteen 
Dolcinists  in  Prague.  Palacky  (ubi  sup.)  argues,  and  I  think  successfully,  that 
this  relates  to  the  above  atTair  and  that  tliere  were  no  executions. 


430  BOHEMIA. 

the  east  of  Europe,  and  to  the  ineiRciency  of  the  local  machinery 
for  its  extermination,  steps  were  immediately  taken  for  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Inquisition.  In  1,318  John  XXII.  commissioned 
the  Dominican  Peregrine  of  Oppoka  and  the  Franciscan  Nicholas 
of  Cracow  as  inquisitors  in  the  dioceses  of  Cracow  and  Breslau, 
while  Bohemia  and  Poland  were  intrusted  to  the  Dominican  Colda 
and  the  Franciscan  Hartmann,  As  usual,  the  secular  and  ecclesi- 
astical powers  were  commanded  to  afford  them  assistance  when- 
ever called  upon,  Poland,  doubtless,  was  as  much  in  need  as  Bo- 
hemia of  inquisitorial  supervision,  for  John  Muscata,  the  Bishop  of 
Cracow,  was  as  negligent  as  his  brother  of  Prague,  and  drew  upon 
himself  in  1319  severe  reprehension  from  John  XXII.  for  the  sloth 
and  neglect  which  had  rendered  heresy  bold  and  aggressive  in  his 
diocese.  This  does  not  seem  to  have  accomplished  much,  for  in 
1327  John  found  himself  obliged  to  order  the  Dominican  Provin- 
cial of  Poland  to  appoint  inquisitors  to  stem  the  flood  of  heresy 
which  was  infecting  the  people  from  regions  farther  west,  Ger- 
many and  Bohemia  apparently  were  sending  missionaries,  whose 
labors  met  with  much  acceptance  among  the  people.  King  Ladis- 
las  was  especially  asked  to  lend  liis  aid  to  the  inquisitors ;  he 
promptly  responded  by  ordering  the  governors  of  his  cities  to 
support  them  with  the  civil  power,  and  their  vigorous  action  was 
rewarded  with  abundant  success.* 

Among  these  heretics  there  may  have  been  Brethren  of  the 
Free  Spirit,  but  they  were  probably  for  the  most  part  Waldenses, 
who  at  this  time  had  a  thoroughly  organized  Church  in  Bohemia, 
whence  emissaries  were  sent  to  Moravia,  Saxony,  Silesia,  and  Po- 
land. They  regarded  Lombardy  as  their  headquarters,  to  which 
they  sent  their  youth  for  instruction,  together  with  moneys  col- 
lected for  the  support  of  the  parent  Church.  All  this  could  not  be 
concealed  from  the  vigilance  of  the  inquisitors  appointed  by  Jolm 
XXII.  No  doubt  active  measures  of  repression  were  carried  out 
with  little  intermission,  though  chance  has  only  preserved  an  in- 
dication of  inquisitorial  proceedings  about  the  year  1330,  Saaz 
and  Laun  are  mentioned  as  the  cities  in  which  heresy  was  most 
prevalent.     With  the  open  rupture  between  the  papacy  and  Louis 

♦  Wadding,  ann.  1318,  No.  2-6.— Ripoll  II.  138-9,  174-6.  -Gustav  Schmidt, 
Pabstliche  Urkunden  und  Regesten,  Halle,  1886,  p.  105. — Raynald.  ann.  1319, 
No.  43. 


JOHN    OF    PIRNA.  431 

of  Bavaria  its  repression  became  more  difficult,  although  Bohe- 
mia under  John  of  Luxembourg  remained  faithful  to  the  Holy- 
See.  Heretics  increased  in  Prague  and  its  neighborhood ;  after  a 
brief  period  of  activity  the  Inquisition  seems  to  have  disappeared  ; 
John  of  Drasic,  whose  tolerance  we  have  seen,  was  still  Bishop  of 
Prague,  and  fresh  efforts  were  necessary.  In  1335  Benedict  XII. 
accordingly  appointed  the  Franciscan  Peter  Naczeracz  as  inquisi- 
tor in  the  diocese  of  Olraiitz  and  the  Dominican  Gall  of  ISTeuburg: 
for  that  of  Prague.  As  usual,  all  prelates  were  commanded  to 
lend  their  aid,  and  King  John  was  specially  reminded  that  he  held 
the  temporal  sword  for  the  purpose  of  subduing  the  enemies  of 
the  faith.  His  son,  the  future  Emperor  Charles  TV.,  at  that  time 
in  charge  of  the  kingdom,  was  similarly  appealed  to.* 

In  the  subject  province  of  Silesia,  about  the  same  period,  a  bold 
heresiarch  known  as  John  of  Pirna  made  a  deep  impression.  He 
was  probably  a  Fraticello,  as  he  taught  that  the  pope  was  Anti- 
christ and  Rome  the  Whore  of  Babjdon  and  a  synagogue  of  Satan. 
In  Breslau  the  magistrates  and  people  espoused  his  doctrines,  which 
were  openly  preached  in  the  streets.  Breslau  was  ecclesiastically 
subject  to  Poland,  and  in  1341  John  of  Schweidnitz  was  commis- 
sioned from  Cracow  as  inquisitor  to  suppress  the  growing  heresy. 
The  people,  however,  arose,  drove  out  their  bishop  and  slew  the 
inquisitor,  for  which  they  were  subsequently  subjected  to  humiliat- 
ing penance,  and  John  of  Pirna's  bones  were  exhumed  and  burned. 
The  unsatisfied  vengeance  of  Heaven  added  to  their  punishment 
by  a  conflagration  which  destroyed  nearly  tlie  whole  city,  during 
which  a  pious  woman  saw  an  angel  with  a  drawn  sword  casting 
fi.ery  coals  among  the  houses.f 

Bohemia  and  its  subject  provinces  were  thus  thoroughly  in- 
fected with  heresy,  mostly  Waldensian,  when  several  changes 
took  place  which  increased  the  prominence  of  the  kingdom  and 
stimulated  vastly  its  intellectual  activity.  In  1344  Prague  was 
separated  from  its  far-off  metropofis  of  Mainz  and  was  erected 
into  an  archbishopric,  for  which  the  piety  of  Charles,  then  Mar- 
grave of  Bohemia,  provided  a  zealous  and  enlightened  prelate  in 

*  Palacky,  op.  cit.  pp.  15-18. —Flac.  Illyr.  Catal.  Test.  Veritatis  Lib.  xv. 
p.  1505  (Ed.  1608).— Raynald.  ann.  1335,  No.  61-2.— Wadding,  aun.  1335,  No.  3-4. 

t  Krasinsky,  Reformation  in  Poland,  London,  1838, 1.  55-6.— Rayuald.  ann. 
1341,  No.  27. 


432  BOHEMIA. 

the  person  of  Arnest  of  Pardubitz.  Two  years  later,  in  1340, 
Charles  was  elected  King  of  the  Romans  by  the  Electors  of  Treves 
and  Cologne  in  opposition  to  Louis  of  Bavaria,  as  the  supporter 
of  the  papacy ;  and  a  month  later  he  succeeded  to  the  throne  of 
Bohemia  through  the  knightly  death  of  the  blind  King  John  at 
Crecy.  Still  more  influential  and  far-reaching  in  its  results  was 
the  founding  in  1347  of  the  University  of  Prague,  to  which  tlic 
combined  favor  of  pope  and  emperor  gave  immediate  lustre. 
Archbishop  Arnest  assumed  its  chancellorship,  learned  schoolmen 
filled  its  chairs ;  students  flocked  to  it  from  every  quarter,  and  it 
soon  rivalled  in  numbers  and  reputation  its  elder  sisters  of  Oxford, 
Paris,  and  Bologna.* 

During  the  latter  half  of  the  century,  Bohemia,  under  these 
auspices,  was  one  of  the  most  flourishing  kingdoms  of  Europe. 
Its  mines  of  the  precious  metals  gave  it  wealth ;  the  freedom 
enjoyed  by  its  peasantry  raised  them  mentally  and  morally  above 
the  level  of  the  serfs  of  other  lands ;  culture  and  enlightenment 
were  diffused  from  its  university.  It  was  renowned  throughout 
the  Continent  for  the  s])lendor  of  its  churches,  which  in  size  and 
number  were  nowhere  exceeded.  At  the  monastery  of  Konig- 
saal,  where  the  Bohemian  kings  lay  buried,  around  the  walls  of 
the  garden  the  whole  of  the  Scriptures,  from  Genesis  to  Revela- 
tions, was  engraved,  with  letters  enlarging  in  size  with  their  dis- 
tance from  the  ground,  so  that  all  could  be  easily  read.  In  the 
bitter  struggles  of  after  generations  the  reign  of  King  Charles 
was  fondly  looked  back  upon  as  the  golden  age  of  Bohemia. 
Wealth  and  culture,  however,  were  accompanied  with  corrup- 
tion. ISTowhere  were  the  clergy  more  w^orldly  and  depraved. 
Concubinage  was  well-nigh  universal,  and  simony  j^ervaded  the 
Church  in  aU  its  ranks,  the  sacraments  were  sold  and  penitence 
compounded  for.  All  the  abuses  for  Avhich  clerical  immunity 
furnished  opportunity  flourished,  and  the  land  was  overrun  by 
vagrants  whose  tonsure  gave  them  charter  to  rob  and  brawl,  and 
dice  and  drink.  The  influences  from  above  which  moulded  the 
Bohemian  Church  may  be  estimated  from  a  single  instance.  In 
1344  Clement  Y I.  wrote  to  Arnest,  then  simple  Bishop  of  Prague, 


*  Werunsky  Excerptt.  ex  Registt.  Clem.  VI.  i^p.  28,  47. — Raynald.  ann.  1347, 
No.  11. 


CONDITION    OF    THE    CHURCH.  433 

calling  attention  to  the  numerous  cases  in  his  diocese  wherein  pre- 
ferment had  been  procured  for  minors  either  by  force  or  simony. 
The  horror  which  the  good  pope  expresses  at  this  abuse  is  sig- 
nificantly illustrated  by  his  having  not  long  before  issued  dispen- 
sations to  five  members  of  one  family  in  France,  aged  respectively 
seven,  eight,  nine,  ten,  and  eleven  years,  to  hold  canonries  and 
other  benefices.  Apparently  the  Bohemians  had  not  taken  the 
proper  means  to  obtain  the  sanction  of  the  curia  for  such  infrac- 
tion of  the  canons,  so  Clement  ordered  Arnest  to  dispossess  the 
incumbents  in  all  such  cases,  and  to  impose  due  penance  on  them. 
But  he  was  also  instructed,  in  conjunction  with  the  papal  collector, 
to  force  them  to  compound  with  the  papal  camera  for  all  the  rev- 
enues which  they  had  thus  illegally  received,  and  after  they  had 
undergone  this  squeezing  process  he  was  authorized  to  reinstate 
them.* 

Such  unblushing  exhibitions  of  rapacious  simony  did  not  tend 
either  to  the  purity  of  the  Bohemian  Church,  or  to  enhance  its 
respect  for  the  Holy  See,  especially  as  the  frequently  recurring 
papal  exactions  strained  to  the  last  degree  the  relations  between 
the  papacy  and  the  German  churches.  When,  in  1354,  Innocent 
VI.,  to  carry  on  his  Italian  wars,  suddenly  demanded  a  tenth  of 
all  the  ecclesiastical  revenues  of  the  empire,  it  threw,  for  several 
years,  the  whole  German  Church  into  an  uproar  of  rage  and  in- 
dignation. Some  prelates  refused  to  pay,  and,  when  legal  pro- 
ceedings were  commenced  against  them,  formulated  appeals  which 
were  contemptuously  rejected  as  frivolous.  The  Bishops  of  Camin 
and  Brandenburg  were  only  compelled  to  yield  by  the  direct 
threat  of  excommunication.  Others  pleaded  poverty,  and  were 
mockingly  reminded  of  the  large  sums  which  they  had  succeeded 
in  exacting  from  their  miserable  subjects ;  others  made  the  best 
bargain  they  could,  and  compounded  for  yearly  payments ;  others 
banded  together  and  formed  associations  mutually  pledged  to  re- 


*  (En.  Sylvii  Hist.Bohem.  c.  36.— Nauclcri  Cliron.  ann.  1360.— Ilofler,  Prager 
Concilicn,  pp.  2,  3,  5,  7.— Loscrth,  IIus  urul  Wicklif,  Prag,  1884,  pp.  261  sqq.— 
Wcruiisky  Excerptt.  ex  Rcgistt.  Clem.  VI.  pp.  1,  2,  3,  13,  25. 

Dispensations  for  children  to  hold  preferment  were  an  abuse  of  old  date, 
as  we  have  seen  in  a  former  chapter.     In  1297  Boniface  VIII.  authorized  a  boy 
of  Florence,  twelve  years  old,  to  take  a  benefice  involving  the  cure  of  souls. — • 
Faucon,  Registres  de  Boniface  VIII.  No.  17G1,  p.  666. 
II.— 28 


434:  BOHEMIA. 

sist  to  the  last.  Frederic,  Bishop  of  Katisbon,  took  the  audacious 
step  of  seizing  the  papal  collector  and  conveying  him  away  to  a 
convenient  castle.  An  ambush  was  laid  for  the  Bishop  of  Ca- 
vaillon,  the  papal  nuncio  charged  with  tlie  business,  and  his  life, 
and  that  of  his  assistant,  Henry,  Archdeacon  of  Liege,  were  only 
saved  by  the  active  interposition  of  William,  Archbishop  of  Co- 
logne. When,  in  1372,  the  levy  was  repeated  by  Gregory  XI., 
the  same  spirit  of  resistance  was  aroused.  The  clergy  of  Mainz 
bound  themselves  to  each  other  in  a  solemn  engagement  not  to 
pay  it,  and  Frederic,  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  promised  his  clergy 
to  give  them  all  the  assistance  he  safely  could  in  their  refusal  to 
submit.  Trilling  incidents  such  as  these  afford  us  a  valuable  in- 
sight into  the  complex  relations  between  the  Holy  See  and  the 
churches  of  Christendom.  On  the  one  hand,  there  was  the  su- 
perstitious awe  generated  by  five  centuries  of  unquestioned  dom- 
ination, as  the  representative  of  Christ,  and  there  was,  moreover, 
the  dread  of  the  material  consequences  of  unsuccessful  revolt.  On 
the  other,  there  was  the  indignation  born  of  lawless  oppression 
ever  exciting  to  rebellion,  and  the  clear-sighted  recognition  of  the 
venality  and  corruption  which  rendered  the  Roman  curia  a  source 
of  contagion  for  all  Europe.  There  was  ample  inflammable  ma- 
terial, which  the  increasing  friction  might  at  any  moment  kindle 
into  flame.* 

Bohemia  was  peculiarly  dangerous  soil,  for  it  was  thoroughly 
interpenetrated  with  the  leaven  of  heresy.  We  hear  nothing  of 
papal  inquisitors  after  those  commissioned  by  Benedict  XII.  in 
1335,  and  it  is  presumable  that  for  a  while  the  heretics  had  peace. 
Archbishop  Arnest,  however,  soon  after  his  accession,  set  reso- 
lutely to  work  to  purify  the  morals  of  his  Church  and  to  uproot 
heresy.  He  held  synods  frequently,  he  instituted  a  body  of  Cor- 
rectors whose  duty  it  was  to  visit  aU  portions  of  the  pro\nnce  and 
punish  all  transgressions,  and  he  organized  an  episcopal  Inquisi- 
tion for  the  purpose  of  tracking  out  and  suppressing  heresy.  In 
the  fragmentary  remains  of  his  synodal  acts,  the  frequency  and 
earnestness  with  which  this  latter  duty  is  insisted  upon  serve  as 
a  measure  of  its  importance,  and  of  the  numbers  of  those  who  had 


•  Werunsky  op.  cit.  pp.  89,  94,  98,  99,  102,  111,  120,  135,  136,  140,  141.- 
Gudeni  Cod.  Diplom.  III.  509.— Hartzheim  Concil.  Germ.  IV.  510. 


PREVALENCE    OF    HERESY.  435 

forsaken  the  Church.  In  the  earliest  synod  whose  proceedings 
have  reached  us  the  first  place  is  given  to  this  subject ;  the  arch- 
deacons were  directed  to  make  diligent  perquisition  in  their  re- 
spective districts,  both  personally  and  through  the  deans  and 
parish  priests,  without  exciting  suspicion,  and  all  who  were  found 
guilty  or  suspect  of  heresy  were  to  be  forthwith  denounced  to 
the  archbishop  or  the  inquisitor.  Similar  instructions  were  is- 
sued in  1355 ;  and  after  Arnest's  death,  in  1364,  his  successor,  John 
Ocko,  was  equally  vigilant,  as  appears  from  the  acts  of  his  synods 
in  1366  and  1371.  The  neighborhood  of  Pisek  was  especially  con- 
taminated, and  from  the  acts  of  the  Consistory  of  1381  it  appears 
that  a  priest  named  Johl,  of  Pisek,  could  not  be  ordained  because 
both  his  father  and  grandfather  had  been  heretics.  What  was 
this  heresy  that  thus  descended  from  generation  to  generation  is 
not  stated,  but  it  was  doubtless  Waldensian.  In  this  same  year 
Archbishop  John,  as  papal  legate  for  his  own  province  and  for 
the  dioceses  of  Ratisbon,  Bamberg,  and  Misnia,  held  a  council  at 
Prague,  in  which  he  mournfully  described  the  spread  of  the  Wal- 
denses  and  Sarabites — the  latter  probably  Beghards.  He  sharply 
reproved  the  bishops  who,  through  sloth  or  parsimony,  had  not 
appointed  inquisitors,  and  threatened  that  if  they  did  not  do  so 
forthwith,  he  would  do  it  himseK.  When,  ten  years  later,  the 
Church  took  the  alarm  and  acted  vigorously,  the  Waldenses  of 
Brandenburg,  who  were  prosecuted,  declared  that  their  teachers 
came  from  Bohemia.* 

In  all  this  activity  for  the  suppression  of  heresy  it  is  worthy 
of  note  that  the  episcopal  Inquisition  alone  is  referred  to.  In 
fact  there  was  no  papal  Inquisition  in  Bohemia.  The  bull  of 
Gregory  XI.,  in  1372,  ordering  the  appointment  of  five  inquisitors 
for  Germany,  confines  their  jurisdiction  to  the  provinces  of  Co- 
logne, Mainz,  Utrecht,  Magdeburg,  Salzburg,  and  Bremen,  and 
pointedly  omits  that  of  Prague,  although  the  zeal  of  Charles  IV. 
might  have  been  expected  to  secure  the  blessings  of  the  institu- 
tion for  his  hereditary  realm. f     This  is  the  more  curious,  more- 


•  Hofler,  Prager  Concilien,  pp.  2,  5,  12,  14,  26-7. — Loserth,  Hus  unci  Wiclif, 
pp.  32-33,  37.— W.  Preger,  Beitrage,  p.  51.— Plac.  Iliyr.  Catal.  Test.  Veritatis 
Lib.  XV.  p.  1506  (Ed.  1608). 

t  Moslieim  cle  Beghardis  p.  381. 


436  BOHEMIA. 

over,  since  the  intellectual  movement  started  by  the  University 
of  Prague  was  producing  a  number  of  men  distinguished  not 
only  for  learning  and  piety,  but  for  their  bold  attacks  on  the 
corruptions  of  the  Cliurc.li,  and  their  questioning  of  some  of  its 
most  profitable  dogmas.  The  appearance  of  these  precursors  of 
Huss  IS  one  of  the  most  remarkable  indications  of  the  tendencies 
of  the  age  in  Bohemia,  and  shows  how  the  Waldensian  spirit  of 
revolt  had  unconsciously  spread  among  the  population. 

Conrad  of  Waldhausen,  who  died  in  1369,  is  reckoned  the  ear- 
liest of  these.  He  maintained  strict  orthodoxy,  but  his  denuncia- 
tion in  his  sermons  of  the  vices  of  the  clergy,  and  especially  of 
the  Mendicants,  created  a  deep  sensation.  More  prominent  in 
every  way  was  Milicz  of  Kremsier,  who,  in  1363,  resigned  the 
office  of  private  secretary  to  the  emperor,  the  function  of  Cor- 
rector intrusted  to  him  by  Archbishop  Arnest,  and  several  rich 
preferments,  in  order  to  devote  himself  exclusively  to  preaching. 
His  sermons  in  Czech,  German,  and  Latin  were  filled  with  auda- 
cious attacks  on  the  sins  and  crimes  of  clergy  and  laity,  and  the 
evils  of  the  time  led  him  to  prophesy  the  advent  of  Antichrist 
between  1365  and  1367.  In  the  latter  year  he  went  to  Rome  in 
order  to  lay  before  Urban  V.  his  views  on  the  present  and  future 
of  the  Church.  "While  awaiting  Urban's  advent  from  Avignon, 
he  affixed  on  the  portal  of  St.  Peter's  an  announcement  of  a  ser- 
mon on  the  subject,  which  led  the  Inquisition  to  throw  him  into 
prison,  but  in  October,  on  the  arrival  of  the  pope,  he  was  released 
and  treated  with  distinction.  On  his  return  to  Prague  he  preached 
with  greater  violence  than  ever.  To  get  rid  of  him  the  priest- 
hood accused  him  to  the  emperor  and  archbishop,  but  in  vain. 
Then  they  formulated  twelve  articles  of  accusation  against  him 
to  the  pope,  and  obtained,  in  January,  1374,  from  Gregory  XI., 
bulls  denouncing  him  as  a  persistent  heresiarch  who  had  filled  aU 
Bohemia,  Poland,  Silesia,  and  the  neighboring  lands  with  his  er- 
rors. According  to  them,  he  taught  not  only  that  Antichrist 
had  come,  that  the  Church  was  extinct,  that  pope,  cardinals, 
bishops  and  prelates  showed  no  light  of  truth,  but  he  permitted 
to  his  followers  the  unlimited  gratification  of  their  passions. 
Milicz  undauntedly  pursued  his  course  until  an  inquisitorial  prose- 
cution was  commenced  agamst  him,  when  he  appealed  to  the  pope. 
In  Lent,  1374,  he  went  to  Avignon,  where  he  readily  proved  his 


THE    PRECURSORS    OF    HUSS.  437 

innocence,  and  on  May  21  was  admitted  to  preach  before  the 
cardinals,  but  he  died  June  29,  before  the  formal  decision  of 
his  case  was  published.  It  is  highly  probable  that  he  was  a  Joa- 
chite — one  of  those  who,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  reverenced  the 
memory  and  believed  in  the  apocalyptic  prophecies  of  the  Ab' 
bot  Joachim  of  Flora.* 

The  spirit  of  indignation  and  disquiet  did  not  confine  itself  to 
denunciations  of  clerical  abuses.  Men  were  growing  bolder,  and 
began  to  question  some  of  the  cherished  dogmas  which  gave  rise 
to  those  abuses.  In  the  synod  of  1381:  one  of  the  subjects  dis- 
cussed was  whether  the  saints  were  cognizant  of  the  prayers  ad- 
dressed to  them,  and  whether  the  worsliipper  was  benefited  by 
their  suJffrages — the  mere  raising  of  such  a  question  showing  how 
dangerously  bold  had  become  the  spirit  of  inquiry.  The  man  who 
most  fitly  rejiresented  this  tendency  was  Mathias  of  Janow,  whom 
the  Archbishop  John  of  Jenzenstein  utilized  in  his  efforts  to  re- 
form the  incurable  disorders  of  the  clergy.  Mathias  was  led  to 
trace  the  troubles  to  their  causes,  and  to  teach  heresies  from  the 
consequences  of  which  even  the  protection  of  the  archbishop  could 
not  wholly  defend  him.  In  the  synod  of  1389  he  was  forced  to 
make  public  recantation  of  his  errors  in  holding  that  the  images 
of  Christ  and  the  saints  gave  rise  to  idolatry,  and  that  they  ought 
to  be  banished  from  the  churches  and  burned ;  that  relics  were 
of  no  service,  and  the  intercession  of  saints  was  useless ;  while  his 
teaching  that  evcrj^  one  should  be  urged  to  take  communion  daily 
foreshadowed  the  eucharistic  troubles  which  play  so  large  a  part 
in  the  Hussite  excitement.  Yet  he  was  allowed  to  escape  with 
six  months'  suspension  from  preaching  and  hearing  confessions 
outside  of  his  own  parochial  church,  a  mistaken  lenity  which  he 
repaid  by  continuing  to  teach  the  same  errors  more  audaciously 
than  ever,  and  even  urging  that  the  laity  be  admitted  to  com- 
munion in  both  elements.  Mathias  was  not  alone  in  his  hetero- 
doxy, for  in  the  same  synod  of  1389  a  priest  named  Andreas  was 
obliged  to  revoke  the  same  heresy  respecting  images,  and  another 
named  Jacob  was  suspended  from  ]7rcaching  for  ten  years  for  a 
still  more  offensive  expression  of  similar  behefs,  with  the  addition 


*  Loserth,  Hus  und  Wiclif,  pp.  49,  50-3. — Lechler  (Real-Encyklopadie,  X. 
1-3).— Raynald.  ann.  1374,  No.  10-11. 


438  BOHEMIA. 

that  suffrages  for  the  dead  were  useless,  that  the  Virgin  could 
not  help  her  devotees,  and  that  the  archbishop  had  erred  in 
granting  an  indulgence  to  those  who  adored  her  image,  and 
that  the  utterances  of  the  holy  doctors  of  the  Church  are  not  to 
be  received.* 

Other  earnest  men  who  prepared  the  way  for  what  was  to  fol- 
low were  Henry  of  Oyta,  Thomas  of  Stitny,  John  of  Stekno,  and 
Matthew  of  Cracow.  Step  by  step  the  progress  of  free  thought 
advanced,  and  when,  in  1393,  a  papal  indulgence  was  preached  in 
Prague,  Wenceslas  Kohle,  pastor  of  St.  Martin's  in  the  Altstadt, 
ventured  to  denounce  it  as  a  fraud,  though  only  under  his  breath, 
for  fear  of  the  Pharisees.  All  this,  it  is  evident,  could  only  be  fa- 
vorable to  the  growth  of  Waldensianism,  as  is  seen  in  the  activity 
of  the  sectaries.  It  was  missionaries  from  Bohemia  who  founded 
the  communities  in  Brandenburg  and  Pomerania ;  and,  as  we  have 
seen,  a  well-informed  writer,  in  1395,  asserts  that  they  were  num- 
bered by  thousands  in  Thuringia,  Misnia,  Bohemia,  Moravia,  Aus- 
tria, and  Hungary,  notwithstanding  that  a  thousand  of  them  had 
been  converted  within  two  years  in  the  districts  extending  from 
Thuringia  to  Moravia. f 

"While  Bohemia  was  thus  the  scene  of  an  agitation  the  out- 
come of  which  no  man  could  foretell,  a  similar  movement  was 
running  a  still  more  rapid  course  in  England,  which  was  destined 
to  exercise  a  decisive  influence  on  the  result.  The  assaults  of 
John  Wickliff  w^ere  the  most  serious  danger  encountered  by  the 
hierarchy  since  the  Hildebrandine  theocracy  had  been  established. 
For  the  first  time  a  trained  scholastic  intellect  of  remarkable  force 
and  clearness,  informed  with  all  the  philosophy  and  theolog}^  of 
the  schools,  was  led  to  question  the  domination  which  the  Church 
had  acquired  over  the  life,  here  and  hereafter,  of  its  members.  It 
was  not  the  poor  peasant  or  artisan  who  found  the  Scriptures  in 
contradiction  to  the  teaching  of  the  pulpit  and  the  confessional, 
and  with  the  practical  examples  set  by  the  sacerdotal  class ;  but 
it  was  a  man  who  stood  in  learning  and  argumentative  power  on 


*  Hofler,  Prager  Concilien,  pp.   33,  37-9. — De  Schweinitz,  History  of  the 
Unitas  Fratrum  (Bethlehem,  Pa.,  1885,  pp.  25-6). 

t  Loserth,  Hus  und  Wiclif,  pp.  54,  56-7,  63-4,  68-9.— Montet,  Hist.  Lit.  dcs 
Vaudois,  p.  150. — Pseudo-Pilichdorf  Tract,  contra  Waldens.  c.  15  (Mag.  Bib.  Pat. 
Xin.  315). 


JOHN    WICKLIFF.  439 

a  level  with  the  foremost  schoolmen  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  who 
could  quote  not  only  Christ  and  the  apostles,  but  the  fathers  and 
doctors  of  the  Church,  the  decretals  and  the  canons,  Aristotle  and 
his  commentators ;  who  could  weave  all  these  into  the  dialectics  so 
dear  to  students  and  masters  of  theology,  and  who  could  frame  a 
system  of  philosophy  suited  to  the  intellectual  wants  of  the  age. 
It  is  true  that  William  of  Ockham  had  been  bold  in  his  attacks 
on  the  overgrown  papal  system,  but  he  was  a  partisan  of  Louis  of 
Bavaria,  and,  with  Marsiglio  of  Padua,  his  aim  had  merely  been  to 
set  the  State  above  the  Church.  With  the  subjection  of  the  em- 
pire to  the  papacy  the  works  of  both  had  perished  and  their  labors 
had  been  forgotten.  The  infidelity  of  the  Averrhoists  had  never 
taken  root  among  the  people,  and  had  been  wisely  treated  by  the 
Church  with  the  leniency  of  contempt.  It  was  the  secret  of  Wick- 
liif's  influence  that  he  had  worked  out  his  conclusions  in  single- 
hearted  efforts  to  search  for  truth ;  his  views  developed  gradually 
as  he  was  led  from  one  point  to  another  ;  he  spared  neither  prince 
nor  prelate ;  he  labored  to  instruct  the  poor  more  zealously  per- 
haps than  to  influence  the  great,  and  men  of  all  ranks,  from  the 
peasant  to  the  schoolman,  recognized  in  him  a  leader  who  sought 
to  make  them  better,  stronger,  more  valiant  in  the  struggle  with 
ApoUyon.  It  is  no  wonder  that  his  work  proved  not  merely 
ephemeral;  that  his  fame  as  a  heresiarch  filled  all  the  schools 
and  became  everywhere  synonymous  Avith  rebellion  against  the 
sacerdotal  system ;  that  simple  Waldenses  in  Spain  and  Germany 
became  thereafter  known  as  Wickliflites.  Yet  the  endurance  of 
his  teachings  was  due  to  his  Bohemian  disciples ;  at  home,  after  a 
brief  period  of  rapid  development,  they  were  virtually  crushed  out 
by  the  combined  power  of  Cliurch  and  State. 

As  the  heresy  of  Huss  was  in  nearly  aU  details  copied  from  his 
master,  WickUff,  it  is  necessary,  in  order  to  understand  the  nature 
of  the  Hussite  movement,  to  cast  a  brief  glance  at  the  views  of 
the  English  reformer.  About  four  years  after  his  death,  in  1388 
and  1389,  twenty-five  articles  of  accusation  were  brought  against 
his  foUowers,  whose  reply  gives,  in  the  most  vigorous  Enghsh,  a 
summary  of  his  tenets.  Few  documents  of  the  period  are  more 
interesting  as  a  picture  of  the  worldhness  and  corruption  of  tlie 
Church,  and  of  the  wrathful  indignation  aroused  by  the  liideous 
contrast  between  the  teaching  of  Christ  and  the  lives  of  those  who 


440  BOHEMIA. 

claimed  to  represent  him.  It  is  observable  that  the  only  purely 
speculative  error  admitted  is  that  concerning  the  Eucharist;  all 
the  others  relate  to  the  doctrines  which  gave  to  the  Church  con- 
trol over  the  souls  and  purses  of  the  faithful,  or  to  the  abuses 
arising  from  the  worldly  and  sensual  character  of  the  clergy.  It 
was  an  essentially  practical  reform,  inspired  for  the  most  part 
with  rare  common-sense  and  with  wonderfully  little  exaggeration, 
considering  the  magnitude  of  the  evils  which  pressed  so  heavily 
upon  Christendom. 

The  document  in  question  shows  the  Wickliffite  belief  to  be 
that  the  popes  of  the  period  were  Antichrist ;  all  the  hierarchy, 
from  the  pope  down,  were  accursed  by  reason  of  their  greed,  their 
simony,  their  cruelty,  their  lust  of  power,  and  their  evil  lives. 
Unless  they  give  satisfaction  "  thai  schul  be  depper  dampned  then 
Judas  Scarioth."  The  pope  was  not  to  be  obeyed,  his  decretals 
were  naught,  and  his  excommunication  and  that  of  his  bishops 
were  to  be  disregarded.  The  indulgences  so  freely  proffered  in 
return  for  money  or  for  the  services  of  crusaders  in  slaying  Chris- 
tians were  false  and  fraudulent.  Yet  the  power  of  the  keys  in 
pious  hands  was  not  denied — "  Certes,  as  holy  prestis  of  ly vynge 
and  cunnynge  of  holy  writte  han  keyes  of  heven  and  bene  vicaris 
of  Jesus  Crist,  so  viciouse  prestis,  unkonnynge  of  holy  writte,  ful 
of  pride  and  covetise,  han  keyes  of  helle  and  bene  vicaris  of  Sa- 
thanas."  Though  auricular  confession  might  be  useful,  it  was  not 
necessary,  for  men  should  trust  in  Christ.  Image-worship  was 
unlawful,  and  representations  of  the  Trinity  were  forbidden — 
"  Hit  semes  that  this  offrynge  ymages  is  a  sotile  cast  of  Anti- 
christe  and  his  clerkis  for  to  drawe  almes  fro  pore  men.  . .  .  Certis, 
these  ymages  of  hemself e  may  do  nouther  gode  nor  yvel  to  mennis 
soules,  but  thai  myghtten  warme  a  man's  body  in  colde  if  thai 
were  sette  upon  a  fire."  The  invocation  of  saints  was  useless; 
the  best  of  them  could  do  nothing  but  what  God  ordained,  and 
many  of  those  customarily  invoked  were  in  heU,  for  in  modern 
times  sinners  stood  a  better  chance  of  canonization  than  holy  men. 
It  was  the  same  with  their  feast-days ;  those  of  the  apostles  and 
early  saints  might  be  observed,  but  not  the  rest.  Song  was  not 
to  be  used  in  divine  service,  and  prayer  was  as  efficient  anywhere 
as  in  church,  for  the  churches  were  not  holy — "  all  suche  chirches 
bene  gretely  poluted  and  cursud  of  God,  nomely  for  sellynge  of 


WICKLIFFITE    DOCTRINES.  441 

lecclierie  and  fals  swering  upon  bokus.  Sitlien  tho  chirches  bene 
dunnus  of  thefis  and  habitacionis  of  fendis."  Ecclesiastics  must 
not  live  in  luxury  and  pomp,  but  as  poor  men  "  gyvynge  ensaum- 
ple  of  holynes  by  ther  conversacion."  The  Church  must  be  de- 
prived of  all  its  temporalities,  and  whatever  was  necessary  for  the 
support  of  its  members  must  be  held  in  common.  Tithes  and  of- 
ferings were  not  to  be  given  to  sinful  priests ;  it  was  simony  for 
a  priest  to  receive  payment  for  his  spiritual  ministrations,  though 
he  might  sell  his  labor  in  honest  vocations,  such  as  teaching  and 
the  binding  of  books,  and  though  no  one  was  forbidden  to  make 
an  oblation  at  mass,  provided  he  did  not  seek  to  obtain  more  than 
his  share  in  the  sacrifice.  All  parish  priests  and  vicars  who  did 
not  perform  their  functions  were  to  be  removed,  and  especially 
all  who  were  non-resident.  All  priests  and  deacons,  moreover, 
were  to  preach  zealously,  for  which  no  special  license  or  commis- 
sion was  required. 

All  these  tenets  of  which  they  were  accused  the  Wickliffites 
admitted  and  defended  in  the  most  incisive  fashion,  but  there 
were  two  articles  which  they  denied.  Wickliff's  teaching  so 
closely  resembled  that  of  the  Waldenses  that  it  was  natural  that 
the  orthodox  should  attribute  to  him  the  two  Waldensian  errors 
which  regarded  all  oaths  as  unlawful,  and  held  that  priests  in 
mortal  sin  could  not  administer  the  sacraments.  To  the  former, 
his  followers  replied  that,  though  they  rejected  all  unnecessary 
swearing,  they  admitted  that  "  If  hit  be  nedef ul  for  to  swere  for  a 
spedf ul  treuthe  men  mowe  wele  swere  as  God  did  in  the  olde  lawe." 
As  to  the  latter,  they  said  that  tlie  sinful  priest  can  give  sacra- 
ments efficient  to  those  who  worthily  receive  them,  though  he  re- 
ceive damnation  unto  himself.  The  prominence  of  the  FraticeUi 
also  suggested  the  imputation  that  the  Wickliffites  beUeved  the 
entire  renunciation  of  property  to  be  essential  to  salvation ;  but 
this  they  denied,  saying  that  a  man  might  make  lawful  gains 
and  hold  them,  but  that  he  must  use  them  well.* 

All  these  antisacerdotal  teachings  flowed  directly  from  the 


»  Arnold's  English  Works  of  Wyclif,  III.  454-96.  Cf.  Va3  Octuplex  (lb.  II. 
380);  Of  jMynyslris  in  the  Chirch  (lb.  II.  394);  Vaughan's  Tracts  and  Treatises, 
p.  226;  Trialogi  in.  6,  7;  Trialogi  Supplcm.  c.  2. — Loscrth,  IMittlicilungen  des 
Vereiues  fiir  Gescb.  der  Deutschen  in  Bolimen,  1886,  })p.  384  .stjcp 


442  BOHEMIA. 

resoluteness  with  which  "Wickliff  carried  out  to  its  logical  conclu- 
sion the  Augustinian  doctrine  of  predestination,  thus  necessarily 
striking  at  the  root  of  all  human  mediation,  the  suffrages  of  the 
saints,  justification  by  works,  and  all  the  machinery  of  the  Church 
for  the  purchase  and  sale  of  salvation.  In  this,  as  in  the  rest, 
Huss  followed  him,  though  the  distinction  between  his  principles 
and  the  orthodox  ones  of  the  Thomists  and  other  schoolmen  was 
too  subtle  to  render  this  point  one  which  the  Church  could  easily 
condemn.* 

The  one  serious  speculative  error  of  "Wickliff  lay  in  his  effort 
to  reconcile  the  mystery  of  the  Eucharist  with  the  stubborn  fact 
that  after  consecration  the  bread  remained  bread  and  the  wine 
continued  to  be  wine.  He  did  not  deny  conversion  into  the  body 
and  blood  of  Christ ;  they  were  really  present  in  the  sacrifice,  but 
his  reason  refused  to  acknowledge  transubstantiation,  and  he  in- 
vented a  theory  of  the  remanence  of  the  substance  coexisting  with 
the  divine  elements.  Into  these  dangerous  subtleties  Huss  refused 
to  follow  his  master.  It  was  the  one  point  on  which  he  decUned 
to  accept  the  reasoning  of  the  Englishman,  and  yet,  as  we  shall 
see,  it  served  as  a  principal  excuse  for  hurrying  him  to  the  stake. 

Wickliff's  career  as  a  heresiarch  was  unexampled,  and  its  pe- 
culiarities serve  to  explain  much  that  would  otherwise  be  incom- 
prehensible in  the  growth  and  tolerance  of  his  doctrines  in  Bohe- 
mia, and  in  the  simplicity  with  which  Huss  refused  to  believe  that 
he  could  himself  be  regarded  as  a  heretic.  Although,  as  early  as 
1377,  the  assistance  which  Wickliff  rendered  to  Edward  III.  in 
diminishing  the  papal  revenues  moved  Gregory  XI.  to  command 
his  immediate  prosecution  as  a  heretic,  yet  the  political  situation 
was  such  as  to  render  ineffectual  all  efforts  to  carry  out  these  in- 
structions ;  he  was  never  even  excommunicated,  and  was  allowed 
to  die  peacefully  in  his  rectory  of  Lutterworth  on  the  last  day  of 
the  year  1384.  No  further  action  was  taken  by  Rome  until  the 
question  of  his  heres}'-  was  raised  in  Prague.     Although,  in  1409, 


*  Trialogi  11.  14 ;  IV.  22.  —  Jo.  Hus  de  Ecclesia,  c.  1  (Monument.  I.  fol.  196-7, 
Ed.  1558). — Wil.  Wodford  adv.  Jo.  Wiclefum  (Fascic.Rer.  Expetend.  et  Fugiend. 
I.  250,  Ed.  1690). — In  the  condemnation  of  the  innovations  by  the  Council  of 
Prague,  in  1412,  predestination  is  not  among  the  errors  enumerated  (Hoflcr, 
Prager  Concilien,  p.  72),  though  it  appears  in  the  final  proceedings  against  Huss 
in  the  Council  of  Constance  (P.  Mladenowic  Relatio,  Palacky  Documenta,  p.  317). 


WICKLIFF    IN    BOHEMIA.  443 

Alexander  Y.  ordered  Archbishop  Zbinco  not  to  permit  his  errors 
to  be  taught  or  his  books  to  be  read,  yet  when,  in  1410,  John 
XXIII.  referred  his  writings  to  a  commission  of  four  cardinals, 
who  convoked  an  assembly  of  theologians  for  their  examination, 
a  majority  decided  that  Archbishop  Zbinko  had  not  been  justified 
in  burning  them.  It  was  not  until  the  Council  of  Rome,  in  1413, 
that  there  was  a  formal  and  authoritative  condemnation  pro- 
nounced, and  it  was  left  for  the  Council  of  Constance,  in  1415,  to 
proclaim  Wickliff  as  a  heresiarch,  to  order  his  bones  exhumed, 
and  to  define  his  errors  with  the  authority  of  the  Church  Univer- 
sal. Huss  might  weU,  to  the  last,  believe  in  the  authenticity  of 
the  spurious  letters  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  brought  to  Prague 
about  1403,  in  which  Wickliff  was  declared  perfectly  orthodox, 
and  might  conscientiously  assert  that  his  books  continued  to  be 
read  and  taught  there.^ 

The  marriage  of  Anne  of  Luxembourg,  sister  of  Wenceslas  of 
Bohemia,  to  Richard  II.,  in  1382,  led.  to  considerable  intercourse 
between  the  kingdoms  until  her  death,  in  1394.  Many  Bohemi- 
ans visited  England  during  the  excitement  caused  by  Wickliff's 
controversies,  and  his  writings  were  carried  to  Prague,  where  they 
found  great  acceptance.  Huss  tells  us  that  about  1390  they  com- 
menced to  be  read  in  the  University  of  Prague,  and  that  they  con- 
tinued thenceforth  to  be  studied.  No  orthodox  Bohemian  had 
hitherto  ventured  as  far  as  the  daring  Englishman,  but  there  were 
many  who  had  entered  on  the  same  path,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
secret  Waldensian  heretics,  and  the  general  feeling  excited  through- 
out Germany  by  the  reckless  simony  and  sale  of  indulgences  which 
marked  the  later  years  of  Boniface  IX.  Thus  the  movement  which 
had  been  in  progress  since  the  middle  of  the  century  received  a 
fresh  impulsion  from  the  circumstances  under  which  the  works  of 
Wickliff  were  perused  and  scattered  abroad  in  innumerable  copies. 
All  of  his  treatises  were  eagerly  sought  for.  A  MS.  in  the  Hof- 
bliothek  of  Vienna  gives  a  catalogue  of  ninety  of  them  which 


*  Raynald.  ann.  1377,  No.  4-6. — Lechler's  Life  of  WickliflF,  Lorimer's  Trans- 
lation, II.  288-90,  343-7.— Loserth,  ITns  und  Wiclif,  pp.  101-2,  121.— Palacky 
Documenta  Mag.  Johaunis  IIus,  p.  189,  203,  313,  374-G,  426-8,  467.— Ilarduin. 
Concil.  VIII.  203.— Von  dcr  Ilardt  III.  xii.  168;  IV.  153,  328.— Jo.  IIus  Replica 
contra  P.  Stokes  (Monument.  I.  108  a). — Hofler,  Prager  Concilien,  p.  53. 


444  BOHEMIA. 

were  known  in  Bohemia,  and  it  is  to  those  regions  that  we  must 
look  for  the  remains  of  his  voluminous  labors,  the  greater  part  of 
which  were  successfully  suppressed  at  home.  In  time  he  came  to 
be  reverenced  as  the  fifth  Evangelist,  and  a  fragment  of  stone 
from  his  tomb  was  venerated  at  Prague  as  a  relic.  Still  more 
suggestive  of  his  commanding  influence  is  the  fidelity  with  which 
Huss  followed  his  reasoning,  and  oftentimes  the  arrangement,  and 
even  the  words,  of  his  treatises.* 

John  of  Husinec,  commonly  known  as  Huss,  who  became  the 
leading  exponent  and  protomartyr  of  Wickliffltism  in  Bohemia, 
is  supposed  to  have  been  born  in  1369,  of  parents  whose  poverty 
forced  him  to  earn  his  own  hvelihood.  In  1393  he  obtained  the 
degree  of  bachelor  of  arts ;  in  139-1  that  of  bachelor  of  theol- 
ogy ;  in  1396  that  of  master  of  arts ;  but  the  doctorate  he  never 
attained,  though  in  1398  he  was  already  lecturing  in  the  univer- 
sity ;  in  1101  he  was  dean  of  the  philosophical  faculty,  and  rec- 
tor in  1402.  Curiously  enough,  he  embraced  the  Eeahst  philoso- 
phy, and  won  great  applause  in  his  combats  with  the  Nominalists. 
So  little  promise  did  his  early  years  give  of  his  career  as  a  reformer 
that,  in  1392,  he  spent  his  last  four  groschen  for  an  indulgence, 
when  he  had  only  dry  crusts  for  food.  In  1400  he  was  ordained 
as  priest,  and  two  years  later  he  was  appointed  preacher  to  the 
Bethlehem  chapel,  where  his  earnest  eloquence  soon  rendered  him 
the  spiritual  leader  of  the  people.  The  study  of  "Wickliff's  writ- 
ings, begun  shortly  after  this,  quickened  his  appreciation  of  the 
evils  of  a  corrupted  Church,  and  when  Archbishop  Zbinco  of  Ha- 
senburg,  shortly  after  his  consecration  in  1403,  appointed  him  as 
preacher  to  the  annual  synods,  Huss  improved  the  opportunity  to 
address  to  the  assembled  clergy  a  series  of  terrible  invectives 
against  their  worldliness  and  filthiness  of  living,  which  excited 
general  popular  hatred  and  contempt  for  them.  After  one  of  pe- 
culiar vigor,  in  October,  1407,  the  clamor  among  the  ecclesiastics 
grew  so  strong  that  they  presented  a  formal  complaint  against 
him  to  Archbishop  Zbinco,  and  he  was  deprived  of  the  position. 


*  Loserth,  op.  cit.  pp.  79, 114, 161  sqq. — Mittbeilungen  des  Vereines  fiir  Gesch. 
d.  Deutschen  in  Bohmen,  1886,  395  sqq. — Jo.  Hus  Monument.  I.  25a,  108a. — 
Nider  Formicar.  Lib.  iii.  c.  9.  fol.  50a,— Von  der  Hardt  IV.  328.— Gobelin.  Per- 
sonae  Cosmodrom.  ^tat.  vi.  c.  86-7  (Meibom.  Rer.  German.  I.  319-21). 


COMMENCEMENT    OF    DISCORD.  445 

By  this  time  he  was  recognized  as  the  leader  in  the  effort  to  purify 
the  Church,  and  to  reduce  it  to  its  ancient  simplicity,  with  such 
men  as  Stephen  Palecz,  Stanislas  of  Znaim,  John  of  Jessinetz,  Je- 
rome of  Prague,  and  many  others  eminent  for  learning  and  piety 
as  his  collaborators.  To  some  of  these  he  was  inferior  in  intel- 
lectual gifts,  but  his  fearless  temper,  his  unbending  rectitude,  his 
blameless  life,  and  his  kindly  nature  won  for  him  the  affectionate 
veneration  of  the  people  and  rendered  him  its  idol.* 

Discussion  grew  hot  and  passions  became  embittered.  Old 
jealousies  and  hatreds  between  the  Teutonic  and  Czech  races  con- 
tributed to  render  the  religious  quarrel  unappeasable.  The  vices 
and  oppression  of  the  clergy  had  alienated  from  them  popular 
respect,  and  the  fiery  diatribes  of  the  Bethlehem  chapel  were  lis- 
tened to  eagerly,  while  the  Wickliffite  doctrines,  which  taught  the 
baselessness  of  the  whole  sacerdotal  system,  were  welcomed  as  a 
revelation,  and  spread  rapidly  through  all  classes.  King  "Wen- 
ceslas  was  inclined  to  give  them  such  support  as  his  indolence 
and  self-indulgence  would  permit,  and  his  queen,  Sophia,  was  even 
more  favorably  disposed.  Yet  the  clergy  and  their  friends  could 
not  submit  quietly  to  the  spohation  of  their  privileges  and  wealth, 
although  the  Great  Schism,  in  weakening  the  influence  of  the  Ro- 
man curia,  rendered  its  support  less  efficient.  Preachers  who 
assailed  their  vices  were  thrown  into  prison  as  heretics  and  were 
exiled,  and  the  writings  of  Wickliff,  which  formed  the  key  of  the 
position,  were  fiercely  assaulted  and  desperately  defended.  The 
weak  point  in  them  was  the  substitution  of  remanence  for  tran- 
substantiation ;  and  although  this  was  discarded  by  Huss  and  his 
followers,  it  served  as  an  unguarded  point  through  which  the 
whole  position  might  be  carried.  The  synod  of  14:05  asserted  the 
doctrine  of  transubstantiation  in  its  most  absolute  shape ;  any  one 
teaching  otherwise  was  pronounced  a  heretic,  and  was  ordered  to 
be  reported  to  the  archbishop  for  punishment.     In  1406  this  was 


*  Loserth,  op.  cit.  pp.  13,  75-8,  98-100.— Jo.  Hus  Monument.  II.  25-52. 

Even  ^neas  Sylvius  (Hist.  Bohetn.  c.  35)  speaks  of  Huss  as  distinguished  for 
the  purity  of  his  life ;  and  the  Jesuit  Balbinus  says  that  his  austerity  and  mod- 
esty, his  kindness  to  all,  even  to  the  meanest,  won  for  him  universal  favor.  No 
one  believed  that  so  holy  a  man  could  deceive  or  be  deceived,  so  that  the  mem- 
ory of  the  thief  was  worshipped  at  Prague  as  that  of  a  saint  (Bohuslai  Balbini  Epit. 
Rer.  Bohem.  Lib.  v.  c.  v.  p.  431). 


446  BOHEMIA. 

repeated  in  a  still  more  threatening  form,  showing  that  the  "Wick- 
liffite  views  had  obstinate  defenders ;  as,  indeed,  is  to  be  seen  by 
a  tract  of  Thomas  of  Stitny,  Avritten  in  1400.  Already,  in  1403, 
a  series  of  forty -five  articles  extracted  from  AVickliff' s  works  was 
formally  condemned  by  the  university.  Around  these  the  battle 
raged  with  fury ;  the  condemnation  was  repeated  in  1408,  and  in 
1410  Archbishop  Zbinco  solemnly  burned  in  the  courtyard  of  his 
palace  two  hundred  of  the  forbidden  books,  while  the  populace 
revenged  itself  by  singing  through  the  streets  rude  rhymes,  in 
which  the  prelate  is  said  to  have  burned  books  which  he  could 
not  read ;  for  his  ignorance  was  notorious,  and  he  was  reported  to 
have  first  acquired  the  alphabet  after  his  elevation.* 

In  the  strife  between  rival  popes  it  suited  the  policy  of  King 
Wenceslas,  in  1408,  to  maintain  neutrality,  and  he  induced  the 
university  to  send  envoys  to  the  cardinals  who  had  renounced 
allegiance  to  both  Benedict  XIII.  and  Gregory  XII.  In  this  mis- 
sion were  included  Stephen  Palecz  and  Stanislas  of  Znaim,  but  the 
whole  party  fell,  in  Bologna,  into  the  hands  of  Balthasar  Cossa,  the 
papal  legate  (afterwards  John  XXIII.),  who  threw  them  all  in 
prison  as  suspect  of  heresy,  and  it  required  no  Httle  effort  to  secure 
their  release.  This  adventure  cooled  the  zeal  of  Stephen  and  Stan- 
islas ;  they  gradually  changed  sides,  and  from  the  warmest  friends 
of  Huss  they  became,  as  we  shaU  see,  his  most  dangerous  and  im- 
placable enemies.f 

In  this  affair  the  university  had  not  seconded  the  wishes  of  the 
king  with  the  alacrity  which  he  had  expected,  and  Huss  took 
advantage  of  the  royal  displeasure  to  effect  a  revolution  in  that 
institution,  which  had  hitherto  proved  the  chief  obstacle  in  the 
progress  of  reform.  It  was  divided,  in  the  ordinary  manner,  into 
four  "  nations."  As  each  of  these  nations  had  a  vote,  the  Bohe- 
mians constantly  found  themselves  outnumbered  by  the  foreign- 


*  Palacky  Documenta,  pp.  3,  56. — Berger,  Johannes  Hus  u.  Konig  Sigmund, 
p.  5.— Loserth,  op.  cit.  pp.  82,  98-100,  103-5,  111-13,  270.— Hofler,  Prager  Con- 
cilien,  pp.  43-6,  51-3,  57,  60,  61-2.— Hist.  Persecut.  Eccles.  Bohem.  p.  29. 

Wickliif  continued  to  the  end  to  be  the  chief  authority  of  the  Hussites.  A 
half  a  century  later  he  is  appealed  to  by  both  factions  into  which  they  were 
divided.  See  Peter  Chelcicky's  reply  to  Rokyzana,  in  GoU,  Quellen  und  Unter- 
suchungen  zur  Geschichte  der  Bohmischen  Briider,  11.  83-4. 

t  Loserth,  pp.  105-6. — Palacky  Documenta,  pp.  345-6,  363-4. 


PROGRESS    OF    REFORM.  447 

ers.  It  was  now  proposed  to  adopt  the  constitution  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris,  where  the  French  nation  had  three  votes,  and  all 
the  foreign  nations  collectively  but  one.  The  vacillation  of  Wen- 
ceslas  delayed  decision,  but  in  January,  1409,  he  signed  the  decree 
which  ordered  the  change.  The  German  students  and  professors 
bound  themselves  by  a  vow  to  procure  the  revocation  of  the  de- 
cree or  to  leave  the  university.  Failing  in  the  former  alternative, 
they  abandoned  the  city  in  vast  numbers,  founding  the  University 
of  Leipsic,  and  spreading  throughout  Europe  the  report  that  Bo- 
hemia was  a  nest  of  heretics.  The  dyke  was  broken  down,  and 
the  flood  of  Wickliffitism  poured  over  the  land  with  little  to  check 
its  progress.  In  vain  did  Alexander  Y.  and  John  XXIII.  com- 
mand Archbishop  Zbinco  to  suppress  the  heresy,  and  in  vain  did 
the  struggling  prelate  hold  assemblies  and  issue  comminatory 
decrees.  The  tide  bore  all  before  it,  and  Zbinco  at  last,  in  1411, 
abandoned  his  ungrateful  see  to  appeal  to  Wenceslas's  brother 
Sigismund,  then  recently  elected  King  of  the  Komans,  but  died  on 
the  journey.* 

This  removed  the  last  obstacle.  The  new  archbishop,  Albik 
of  Unicow,  previously  physician  to  Wenceslas,  was  old  and  weak, 
and  more  given  to  accumulating  money  than  to  defending  the 
faith.  He  was  said  to  carry  the  key  of  his  wine-cellar  himself,  to 
have  only  a  wretched  old  crone  for  a  cook,  and  to  sell  habitually 
all  presents  made  to  him.  Thoroughly  unfitted  for  the  crisis,  he 
resigned  in  1413,  and  was  succeeded  by  Conrad  of  Yechta,  who, 
after  some  hesitation,  cast  his  lot  with  the  followers  of  Huss. 
Yet,  during  these  troubles,  the  papal  Inquisition  seems  to  have 
been  established  in  Prague,  and,  strangely  enough,  to  have  seen 
nothing  in  the  Hussite  movement  to  call  for  its  interference, 
though  it  could  act  against  Waldenses  and  other  recognized  here- 
tics. When,  in  1408,  the  king  ordered  Archbishop  Zbinco  to  make 
a  thorough  perquisition  after  heresy,  Nicholas  of  Yilemonic,  known 
as  Abraham,  priest  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  Prague, 
was  tried  before  the  inquisitors  Moritz  and  Jaroslav  for  Walden- 
sianism,  and  was  thrown  into  prison  for  asserting  that  he  could 
preach  under  authority  from  Christ  without  that  of  the  archbishop. 


*  Loscrtb,  op.  cit.  pp.  106-10,  123-4.— Palacky  Documeuta,  pp.  181,  347,  350- 
62.— Hofler,  Prager  Coucilien,  pp.  64-70.— Raynald.  ann.  1409,  No.  89. 


448  BOHEMIA. 

Huss  interposed  in  his  favor,  but  his  liberation  was  postponed 
through  his  refusal  to  repeat,  on  the  Gospels,  an  oath  which  he 
had  already  sworn  by  God.  One  of  the  accusations  brought  against 
Huss  at  Constance  was  the  favor  which  he  showed  to  Waldensian 
and  other  heretics ;  and  yet,  when  he  was  about  to  depart  on  his 
fateful  journey  to  Constance,  the  papal  inquisitor  Nicholas,  Bishop 
of  Nazareth,  gave  him  a  formal  certificate,  attested  by  a  notarial 
act,  to  the  effect  that  he  had  long  known  him  intimately,  and  had 
never  heard  an  heretical  expression  from  him,  and  that  no  one  had 
ever  accused  him  of  heresy  before  the  tribunal.  The  Hussite  and 
Waldensian  movements  were  too  nearly  akin  for  Huss  not  to  sym- 
pathize with  the  acknowledged  heretics,  and  in  the  virtual  spirit- 
ual anarchy  of  these  tumultuous  years  "Waldensian  influence  must 
have  made  itself  more  and  more  felt,  and  the  sectaries  must  have 
been  emboldened  to  show  themselves  ever  more  openly.* 

Everything  thus  conspired  to  accelerate  the  progress  of  the 
revolution.  Huss,  who  had  hitherto,  for  the  most  part,  confined 
himself  to  assaults  upon  the  local  ecclesiastical  estabhshment,  be- 
gan to  direct  his  attacks  at  the  papacy  itself,  and  in  the  writings 
of  Wickliff  he  found  ample  store  of  arguments,  which  he  used  with 
great  effect.  He  also  made  use  of  another  of  Wickliff's  methods 
by  the  employment  of  itinerant  priests.  This  was  peculiarly  well 
adapted  to  accomplish  the  object  in  view,  for  the  Bohemians  were 
given  to  listening  to  sermons,  and  the  unlicensed  preaching  for 
which  the  negligence  of  the  estabhshed  clergy  gave  opportunity 
had  been  a  frequent  source  of  complaint  since  the  year  1371.  The 
repetition  of  the  prohibitions  shows  their  ineffectiveness ;  the  pop- 
ular craving  for  spiritual  instruction,  which  the  Church  could  have 
turned  to  such  good  account,  was  abandoned  to  the  agitators ;  the 
people  flocked  in  crowds  to  hear  them,  in  spite  of  priestly  anathe- 
mas, and  the  great  mass  of  the  nation,  from  nobles  to  peasants, 
eagerly  adopted  the  new  doctrines,  and  were  prepared  to  support 
them  to  the  death. f 

Matters  were  rapidly  tending  to  an  open  rupture  with  Rome. 


*  ^nese  Sylv.  Hist.  Bohem.  c.  35.— Loserth,  op.  cit.  p.  137. — Palacky  Docu- 
menta,  pp.  184-5,  342-3.— Palacky,  Beziehungen,  pp.  19-20. — Jo.  Hus  Monument. 
I.  2-3. 

t  Loserth,  op.  cit.  pp.  120,  123-4. — Hofler,  Prager  Concilien,  pp.  5, 15,  18,  31, 
32,  46,  57. 


THE    QUESTION    OF    INDULGENCES.  419 

In  1410  John  XXIII.,  soon  after  his  accession,  referred  to  Cardi- 
nal Otto  Colonna  the  complaints  which  came  to  Rome  against 
Huss.  On  September  20  Colonna  summoned  him  to  appear  in  per- 
son. He  sent  deputies,  who  appealed  from  the  cardinal  to  the 
pope,  but  they  were  thrown  into  prison  and  severely  handled ; 
and  while  the  appeal  was  pending,  in  February,  l-lll,  Colonna 
excommunicated  him.  On  March  1 5  the  excommunication  was  pub- 
lished in  all  the  churches  of  Prague  save  two ;  the  people  stood 
by  Huss,  and  an  interdict  was  extended  over  the  city,  which  was 
generally  disregarded,  and  Huss  continued  to  preach.  While  af- 
fairs were  in  this  threatening  position  a  new  cause  of  trouble  led 
to  an  explosion.  Just  as  Wickliff  had  been  stirred  to  fresh  hos- 
tility against  the  papacy  by  the  crusade  which,  under  orders  from 
Urban  VI.,  the  Bishop  of  Norwich  had  preached  against  France 
for  its  support  of  the  rival  pope  Clement  VII. ;  just  as  Luther 
was  to  be  aroused  from  his  obscurity  by  the  indulgence-selling  of 
Tetzel  when  Leo  X.  wanted  money,  so  the  Bohemians  were  stim- 
ulated to  active  opposition  when  John  XXIII.,  towards  the  close 
of  1411,  proclaimed  a  crusade  with  Holy  Land  indulgences  against 
Ladislas  of  Naples,  who  upheld  the  claims  of  Gregory  XII.  Ste- 
phen Palecz,  till  then  associated  with  Huss,  was  dean  of  the  the- 
ological faculty.  His  experience  of  the  Bolognese  prison  rendered 
him  timorous  about  withstanding  John  XXIIL,  and  he  declared 
that  there  was  no  authority  to  prevent  the  publication  of  the  in- 
dulgence. Huss  was  bolder,  and  a  controversy  arose  between  them 
which  converted  their  former  friendship  into  an  enmity  destined 
to  bear  bitter  fruits.  June  16,  1412,  he  held  in  the  Carolinum  a 
disputation  which  was  a  very  powerful  and  eloquent  attack  upon 
the  power  of  the  keys,  which  lay  at  the  foundation  of  the  whole 
papal  system.  Absolution  was  dependent  on  the  subjective  con- 
dition of  the  penitent ;  as  many  popes  who  concede  indulgences 
are  damned,  how  can  they  defend  their  pardons  before  God  ?  the 
sellers  of  indulgences  are  thieves,  who  take  by  cunning  lies  that 
which  they  cannot  seize  by  violence ;  the  pope  and  the  whole 
Church  Militant  often  err,  and  an  unjust  papal  excommunication 
is  to  be  disregarded.  This  was  followed  by  other  tracts  and  ser- 
mons which  aroused  popular  enthusiasm  to  a  lofty  pitch.  "Wences- 
las  Tiem,  the  Dean  of  Passau,  to  whom  the  preaching  of  the  cru- 
sade in  Bohemia  was  confided,  farmed  out  the  indulgences  to  the 
II.— 29 


450  BOHEMIA. 

highest  bidders,  and  their  sale  to  the  people  was  accompanied  by  the 
usual  scandals,  which  were  well  calculated  to  excite  indignation.* 

A  few  days  after  the  disputation  a  crowd  led  by  Wok  of 
"Waldstein,  a  favorite  of  King  Wenceslas,  carried  the  papal  bulls 
of  indulgence  to  the  pillory  and  pubhcly  burned  them.  The  well- 
known  legend  attributes  to  Jerome  of  Prague  a  leading  part  in 
this,  and  relates  that  the  bulls  were  strung  around  the  neck  of  a 
strumpet  mounted  on  a  cart,  who  solicited  the  favor  of  the  mob 
with  lascivious  gestures.  No  punishment  was  inflicted  on  the 
participants,  and  Wok  of  Waldstein  continued  to  enjoy  the  royal 
favor.  The  defiance  of  the  pope  was  complete,  and  the  temper  of 
the  people  was  shown  on  July  12,  when  in  three  several  churches 
three  young  mechanics  named  Martin,  John,  and  Stanislas,  inter- 
rupted the  preachers  proclaiming  the  indulgences,  and  declared 
them  to  be  a  lie.  They  were  arrested  and  beheaded  in  spite  of 
Huss's  intercession  ;  many  others  were  imprisoned,  and  some  were 
exposed  to  torture.  Then  the  people  assumed  a  threatening  as- 
pect ;  the  three  who  had  been  executed  were  reverenced  as  mar- 
tyrs ;  tumults  occurred,  and  the  prisoners  were  released.  Soon 
afterwards  a  Carmelite  was  begging  at  the  doors  of  his  church 
with  an  array  of  relics  displayed  upon  a  table,  with  the  indulgences 
attached  to  them  to  excite  the  liberality  of  the  pious.  A  dis- 
ciple of  Huss  denounced  the  affair  as  a  fraud  and  kicked  over  the 
table,  and  when  he  was  seized  by  the  friars  a  band  of  armed  men 
broke  into  the  house  and  released  him,  not  without  bloodshed. f 

John  XXIII.  could  not  avoid  taking  up  the  gage  of  battle 
thus  thrown  down.  The  Bohemian  clergy  appealed  to  him  pite- 
ously,  representing  the  oppression  to  which  they  were  subjected, 
and  stating  that  many  of  them  had  been  slain.  He  promptly  re- 
sponded. The  major  excommunication,  to  be  published  in  aU  its 
awful  solemnit}^  in  Prague,  was  pronounced  against  Huss ;  the 
Bethlehem  chapel  was  ordered  to  be  levelled  with  the  earth ;  his 


*  Loserth,  op.  cit.  pp.  121-3, 130.— Palacky  Documenta,  pp.  19-21, 191, 233  — 
Mladeuowic  Relatio  (Palacky  p.  319). — Jo.  Hus  Disputatio  contra  Indulgent. 
(Monument.  I.  174-89);  Ejusd.  contra  Bull.  PP.  Joannis  (lb.  I.  189-91);  Ejusd. 
Scrm.  XXII.  de  Remissione  Peccatorum  (lb.  II.  74-5). 

t  Loserth,  op.  cit.  p.  131. — Palacky  Documenta,  p.  640. — De  Schweinitz,  Tlist. 
of  the  Unitas  Fratrum,  pp.  41-2. — Stephani  Cartas.  Antihussus  c.  5  (Pez  Thesaur. 
Anecd.  IV.  ii.  380,  383). 


COMPROMISE    IMPOSSIBLE.  45I 

followers  were  excommunicated,  and  all  who  would  not  within 
thirty  days  abjure  heresy  were  summoned  to  answer  in  person  be- 
fore the  Roman  curia.  In  spite  of  this  Huss  continued  to  preach, 
and  when  an  attempt  was  made  to  arrest  him  in  tlie  pulpit  the 
threatening  aspect  of  the  congregation  prevented  its  execution. 
He  appealed  to  a  general  council,  and  then  to  God,  in  a  protest 
which,  in  lofty  terms,  asserted  the  nullity  of  the  sentence  pro- 
nounced against  him.  In  his  treatise  "  De  Ecclesia,"  which  fol- 
lowed not  long  after,  he  attacked  the  papacy  in  unmeasured  lan- 
guage borrowed  from  Wicldiff.  The  pope  is  not  a  pope  and  a 
true  successor  of  Peter  unless  he  imitates  Peter ;  a  pope  given  to 
avarice  is  the  vicar  of  Judas  Iscariot.  So  of  the  cardinals ;  if  they 
enter  save  by  the  door  of  Christ  they  are  thieves  and  robbers. 
Yet  the  clergy,  for  the  most  part  gladly,  obeyed  the  bull  of  ex- 
communication, and  Huss's  presence  in  Prague  led  to  a  cessation  of 
all  church  observances ;  divine  service  was  suspended,  the  new-born 
were  not  baptized,  and  the  dead  lay  unburied.  At  the  request 
of  the  king,  to  relieve  the  situation  of  its  tension,  Huss  left  Prague 
and  retired  to  Kosi  hradek,  whence  he  directed  the  movements 
of  his  adherents  in  the  city  and  busied  himself  in  active  contro- 
versial writing,  the  chief  product  of  which  was  the  "  De  Ecclesia," 
which  was  publicly  read  in  the  Bethlehem  chapel  on  July  8, 1413.* 
King  Wenceslas  had  vainly  tried  to  bring  about  a  pacification 
of  the  troubles  in  which  passions  were  daily  growing  wilder,  com- 
plicated by  the  race  hatred  between  Teuton  and  Czech.  A  con- 
fused series  of  disputations  and  conferences  and  controversial 
tracts  occupied  the  first  half  of  the  year  1413,  which  only  embit- 
tered those  who  took  part  in  them  and  rendered  harmony  more 
distant  than  ever.  In  fact  there  was  no  possible  middle  term,  no 
compromise  in  which  the  disputants  could  unite.  It  was  no  longer 
a  question  of  reforming  the  morals  of  the  clergy,  as  to  the  neces- 
sity of  which  all  were  agreed.  The  controversy  had  drifted  to 
the  causes  of  clerical  corruption,  springing,  as  AVickliff  and  Huss 
and  their  disciples  clearly  saw,  from  the  very  principles  on  which 
the  whole  structure  of  Latin  Christianity  was  based.     Either  the 


*  Hofler,  Prager  Concilion,  pp.  7.3,  110.— Loserth,  op.  cit.  pp.  132-5.— J.  Ilua 
Monument.  I.  17;  Ejusd.  de  Ecclesia  c.  14  (Monument.  T.  223.  Cf.  Wicklif.  de 
Ecoles.  c.  18,  «^).  Losertli,  p.  188). — Pulacky  Documentii,  pp.  458,  464-60. 


452  BOHEMIA. 

power  of  the  keys  was  a  truth  vital  to  the  salvation  of  mankind, 
or  it  was  a  lie  cunningly  invented  and  boldly  utilized  to  gratify 
the  lust  of  power  and  the  greed  of  avarice.  Between  these  two 
antagonistic  postulates  dialectic  subtlety  was  powerless  to  frame  a 
project  of  reconciliation,  and  argument  only  hardened  each  side 
in  its  belief.  One  or  the  other  must  triumph  utterly,  and  force 
alone  could  decide  the  controversy.  "Wearied  at  last  with  his  una- 
vailing efforts,"VVenceslas  finally  cut  the  matter  short  by  banishing 
the  leaders  of  the  conservatives,  Stephen  Palecz,  Stanislas  of  Znaim, 
Peter  of  Znaim,  and  John  Eli  as.  Stanislas  retired  to  Moravia, 
where,  after  incredible  industry  in  controversial  writing,  he  died 
on  the  road  to  the  Council  of  Constance  ;  Stephen  survived  him 
and  revenged  them  both.* 

Huss  and  his  adherents  were  now  masters  of  the  field;  and 
though  he  abstained  from  returning  to  Prague,  except  an  occa- 
sional visit  incognito,  until  his  departure  for  Constance,  he  could 
truly  say,  when  he  stood  up  in  the  council  to  meet  his  accusers, 
"  I  came  hither  of  my  own  free  will.  Had  I  refused  to  come 
neither  the  king  nor  the  emperor  could  have  forced  me,  so  numer- 
ous are  the  Bohemian  lords  who  love  me  and  who  would  have 
afforded  me  protection."  And  when  the  Cardinal  Peter  d'Ailly 
indignantly  exclaimed,  "  See  the  impudence  of  the  man,"  and  a 
murmur  ran  around  the  whole  assembl}^,  John  of  Chlum  calmly 
arose  and  said,  "He  speaks  the  truth,  for  though  I  have  little 
power  compared  with  others  in  Bohemia,  I  could  easily  defend 
him  for  a  year  against  the  whole  strength  of  both  monarchs. 
Judge,  then,  how  much  more  could  they  whose  forces  are  greater 
and  whose  castles  are  stronger  than  mine."  f 

While  thus  in  Bohemia  the  upholders  of  the  old  order  of  things 
were  silenced  and  reformation  in  the  morals  of  the  clergy  was  en- 
forced with  no  gentle  hand,  the  news  spread  around  Christendom 
that  the  long-desired  general  council  was  to  be  convoked  at  last 
for  the  settlement  of  the  Great  Schism,  the  reformation  of  the 
Church  from  its  head  downwards,  and  the  suppression  of  heresy. 


*  Hofler,  Piager  Concilien,  pp.  73-100. — Loserth,  op.  cit.  pp.  142-5. — Palacky 
Documenta,  p.  510. — Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky  Documenta,  p.  246). 
t  Von  der  Hardt  IV.  313. 


THE    COUNCIL    OF    CONSTANCE.  4,53 

Many  strivings  had  there  been  to  effect  this,  but  the  poUcy  of  the 
Italian  popes,  as  at  Pisa,  had  thus  far  successfully  eluded  the 
dreaded  decision.  The  pressure  grew,  however,  until  it  became 
overwhelming.  With  the  rival  vicars  of  Christ  each  showering 
perdition  upon  the  adherents  of  the  others,  the  spiritual  condition 
of  the  faithful  was  most  anxious  and  a  solution  of  the  tremendous 
question  was  the  most  pressing  necessity  for  all  who  believed  what 
the  Latin  Church  had  assiduously  taught  for  a  thousand  years. 
The  politics  of  Europe,  moreover,  were  hopelessly  comphcated  by 
the  strife,  and  no  peace  was  to  be  expected  while  so  dangerous  an 
element  of  discord  continued  to  exist.  This  was  especially  the 
case  in  Germany,  where  independent  princes  and  prelates  each 
selected  for  himself  the  pope  of  his  preference,  leading  to  bitter 
and  intricate  quarrels.  Second  only  in  importance  to  this  was 
the  reform  of  the  abuses  and  corruption,  the  venality  and  license 
of  the  clergy,  which  made  themselves  felt  everywhere,  from  the 
courts  of  the  pontiffs  to  the  meanest  hamlet.  Heresy  likewise  was 
to  be  met  and  suppressed,  for  though  England  could  deal  single- 
handed  with  the  Lollardry  within  her  shores,  the  aspect  of  matters 
in  Bohemia  was  threatening,  and  Sigismund,  the  emperor-elect,  as 
the  heir  of  his  childless  brother  Wenceslas,  was  deeply  concerned 
in  the  pacification  of  the  kingdom.  In  vain  John  XXIII.  endeav- 
ored to  have  the  council  held  in  Italy,  where  he  could  control  it. 
The  nations  insisted  on  some  place  where  the  free  parliament  of 
Christendom  could  convene  unshackled  and  debate  unchecked. 
Sigismund  selected  the  episcopal  city  of  Constance ;  John,  hard 
pressed  by  Ladislas  of  Naples  and  driven  from  Rome,  was  forced 
to  yield,  and,  December  9,  1413,  issued  his  bull  convoking  the  as- 
semblage for  the  first  of  the  following  November.  Not  only  were 
all  prelates  and  religious  corporations  ordered  to  be  represented, 
but  all  princes  and  rulers  were  commanded  to  be  there  in  person  or 
by  deputy.  Imperial  letters  from  Sigismund,  which  accompanied 
the  bull,  gave  assurance  that  the  powers  of  State  and  Church  Avould 
be  combined  to  reach  the  result  desired  by  all.* 


*  Leouardi  Aretini  Comment.  (Muratori  S.  R.  I.  XIX.  927-8).— Harduin.  VIII. 
231.— Tbeod.  a  Nicm  Vit.  .Joanii.  XXIII.  Lib.  ii.  c.  37  (Von  der  Hardt  IL  384).— 
Palacky  Documcnta,  pp.  512-18. 

For  the  confusion  existing  in  Germany,  caused  by  the  Schism,  sec  Haupt, 
Zeitsclirift  I'iir  Kirchcngcscliichte,  1883,  pp.  356-8. 


454  BOHEMIA. 

No  such  assemblage  had  been  seen  in  Christendom  since  Inno- 
cent III.,  two  centuries  before,  in  the  ]ilenitude  of  his  power,  had 
summoned  the  representatives  of  Latin  Cliristianity  to  sit  with  him 
in  the  Lateran.  The  later  council  might  boast  fewer  mitred  heads 
than  the  earlier,  but  it  Avas  a  far  more  important  body.  Called 
primarily  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  claims  of  rival  popes,  its  mere 
convocation  was  a  recognition  of  its  supremacy  over  the  successor 
of  Peter.  From  its  decision  there  could  be  no  appeal,  and  the 
questions  to  be  submitted  to  it  were  far  more  weighty  than  those 
which  had  tasked  the  consciences  of  the  Lateran  fathers.  From 
every  part  of  Europe  the  Church  sent  its  best  and  worthiest  to 
take  counsel  together  in  this  crisis  of  its  fate — men  like  Chancellor 
Gerson  and  Cardinal  Peter  d'Ailly  of  Cambrai,  as  earnest  for  re- 
form and  as  sensible  of  existing  wrongs  as  "Wickliff  or  Huss  them- 
selves. The  universities  poured  forth  their  ablest  doctors  of  theol- 
ogy and  canon  law.  Princes  and  potentates  were  there  in  person 
or  by  their  representatives,  and  crowds  of  every  rank  in  life,  from 
the  noble  to  the  juggler.  The  mere  magnitude  of  the  assemblage 
produced  a  powerful  effect  on  the  minds  of  all  contemporaries, 
and  the  wildest  estimates  were  current  of  the  numbers  present. 
One  chronicler  assures  us  that  there  were,  besides  members  of  the 
council,  sixty  thousand  five  hundred  persons  present,  of  whom  six- 
teen thousand  were  of  gentle  blood,  from  knights  and  squires  up 
to  princes.  The  same  authority  informs  us  that  there  were  four 
hundred  and  fifty  public  women,  but  an  official  census  of  the  coun- 
cil, carefully  taken,  reports  that  the  number  was  not  less  than  seven 
hundred,  and  even  succubi  were  popularly  said  to  have  joined  in 
the  nefarious  trade.  Thus  the  strength  and  the  weakness,  the 
virtue  and  the  vice  of  the  fifteenth  century  were  gatliered  to- 
gether to  find  relief  as  best  they  might  for  the  troubles  which 
threatened  to  overwhelm  the  Church.  After  many  doubts  and 
much  hesitation  John  XXIII.  fulfilled  his  promise  to  be  present, 
relying  upon  his  stores  of  gold  to  win  a  triumph  over  his  adver- 
saries and  over  the  council  itself.^ 

It  was  inevitable  that  Huss  should  tempt  his  fate  at  Constance. 


*  Jo.  Fistenport.  Chron.  ann.  1415  (Hahn.  Coll.  Monum.  I.  401). — Dacherii 
Hist,  Magnatum  (Von  der  Hardt  V.  ii.  50).— Tlicod.  a  Niem  Vita  Joann.  XXHL 
Lib.  I.  c.  40  (lb.  n.  388).— Nider  Formicar.  Lit),  v.  c.  ix. 


IIUSS'S    PRESENCE    NECESSARY.  455 

To  both  Sigismnnd  and  AVenceslas  it  was  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance that  some  authoritative  decision  should  put  an  end  to  the 
strife  within  the  Bohemian  Church.  The  reformers  had  always 
professed  their  desire  to  submit  their  demands  to  a  free  general 
council,  and  Huss  himself  had  appealed  to  such  a  council  from  the 
papal  sentence  of  excommunication.  To  hesitate  now  would  be 
to  abandon  his  life's  work,  to  admit  that  he  dared  not  face  the  as- 
sembled piety  and  learning  of  the  Church,  and  to  confess  himself 
a  heretic.  The  host  of  adversaries  in  the  Bohemian  clergy  whom 
his  bitter  invectives  had  inflamed  and  whose  preferment  had  been 
forfeited  through  the  agitation  Avhich  he  had  led  would  surely  be 
there  to  blacken  him  and  to  misrepresent  his  cause,  and  all  would 
be  lost  if  he  were  not  present  to  defend  it  in  person.  They  had 
long  jeered  him  for  not  daring  to  present  himself  to  the  Holy  See 
in  obedience  to  its  summons,  and  had  pronounced  blasphemous 
his  appeal  to  Christ  from  its  excommunication.  To  hesitate  to 
submit  his  cause  to  the  council  would  give  his  adversaries  an 
inestimable  advantage.  Besides,  incredible  as  it  may  seem  in 
view  of  the  violence  of  his  assaults  upon  the  doctrine  which  ren- 
dered the  high  places  in  the  hierarchy  profitable,  and  his  persist- 
ent denial  of  the  validity  of  his  excommunication,  he  believed  him- 
self to  be  in  full  communion  with  the  Church,  that  he  would  find 
the  council  in  sympathy  with  his  views,  and  that  certain  sermons 
which  he  had  prepared  would,  when  delivered  before  the  assem- 
bled prelates,  be  efficient  in  bringing  about  the  reforms  which 
he  advocated.  In  his  singleness  of  mind  he  could  not  comprehend 
that  men  who  had  thundered  as  vehemently  as  himself  against 
current  abuses  and  corruptions,  but  who  had  not  dared  to  assail 
the  principles  from  which  those  evils  sprang,  would  shrink  back 
aghast  from  his  bolder  doctrinal  aberrations,  and  would  regard  him 
as  a  heretic  subject  to  the  inquisitorial  rule  prescribing  the  naked 
alternative  of  recantation  or  the  stake.* 


*  Stephani  Cartus.  Dial.  Volatilis  c.  11,  14,  21  (Pez  Thesaur.  Anecd.  IV.  ii. 
405,  473,  492). — The  three  sermons  prepared  for  this  purpose  are  jjrinted  in 
Huss's  works  (Monument.  I.  44-56).  The  first  is  on  the  sufficiency  of  the  law 
of  Clirist  for  the  government  of  the  Church:  the  second  is  an  elaborate  exposi- 
tion of  his  belief;  the  third  on  Peace,  in  which  lie  attributes  the  schisms  and 
troubles  of  the  Church  to  the  pride  and  greed  and  vices  of  the  clergy. 


45G  BOHEMIA. 

When,  therefore,  the  imperial  and  royal  wishes  for  his  presence 
at  Constance  were  signified  to  him,  with  a  promise  of  safe-conduct 
and  full  security,  he  willingly  assented,  and  so  anxious  was  he  to 
be  present  at  the  opening  of  the  council  that  he  did  not  even  wait 
for  the  promised  safe-conduct,  which  reached  him  only  after  his 
arrival  there.  That  some  discussion  took  place  among  his  friends 
as  to  the  danger  to  be  incurred  there  can  be  no  doubt.  Jerome  of 
Prague,  when  on  his  trial,  asserted  that  he  had  persuaded  Huss  to 
go,  and  Huss  in  one  of  his  letters  from  prison  alludes  to  the  warn- 
ings which  he  had  received.  He  himself  was  evidently  not  wholly 
without  misgivings.  A  sealed  letter  left  with  his  disciple,  Master 
Martin,  not  to  be  opened  till  news  should  be  received  of  his  death, 
alludes  to  the  persecution  which  he  had  suffered  for  restraining 
the  inordinate  lives  of  the  clergy,  and  his  expectation  that  it  would 
soon  reach  its  consummation.  He  makes  disposition  of  his  slender 
effects — his  gray  gown,  his  white  gown,  and  sixty  grossi,  which 
comprise  the  whole  of  his  worldly  gear — and  expresses  his  remorse 
for  the  time  wasted  before  his  ordination,  when  he  used  to  play 
chess  to  the  loss  of  his  own  temper  and  that  of  others.  The  unaf- 
fected simplicity  and  pure-heartedness  of  the  man  shine  like  a 
divine  light  through  the  brief  words  of  his  last  request.  A  letter 
in  the  vernacular  to  his  disciples  also  announces  his  fear  that  his 
enemies  may  seek  in  the  council  to  take  his  life  by  false  testimony. 
He  asks  the  prayers  of  his  friends  that  he  may  have  eloquence  to 
uphold  the  truth  and  constancy  to  endure  to  the  last.  Still,  he 
did  not  wholly  neglect  precautions.  Not  only  did  he  procure  from 
the  inquisitor  Nicholas,  Bishop  of  Nazareth,  the  certificate  of  his 
orthodoxy  already  alluded  to,  but  he  posted,  August  26,  through- 
out Prague  a  notice  in  Latin  and  Bohemian  that  he  would  appear 
before  the  archbishop,  then  holding  a  convocation  of  the  Bohemian 
clergy,  and  challenged  ah  who  impugned  his  faith  to  come  forward 
and  accuse  him  either  there  or  at  Constance,  asserting  his  readi- 
ness to  submit  to  the  punishment  of  heresy  in  case  he  was  con- 
victed, but  that  accusers  who  failed  should  be  subjected  to  the 
talio.  When  John  of  Jessinetz,  his  representative,  presented  him- 
self the  next  day  at  the  door  of  the  convocation,  he  was  refused  ad- 
mission on  the  pretext  that  the  body  was  dehberating  on  national 
affairs,  and  he  was  told  to  come  back  another  time.  In  the  as- 
sembly of  nobles,  however,  Huss  obtained  an  audience  of  the  arch- 


THE    JOURNEY    TO    CONSTANCE.  457 

bishop,  who  was  also  papal  legate,  and  who  declared  that  he  knew 
of  nothing  to  render  Huss  guilty  except  that  he  ought  to  purge 
himself  of  the  excommunication.  Of  this  a  certified  notarial  in- 
strument was  sent  to  Sigismund  by  Huss  with  the  statement  that 
under  the  imperial  safe-conduct  he  was  ready  to  go  to  Constance 
to  defend  publicly  the  faith  for  which  he  was  prepared,  if  neces- 
sary, to  die.* 

Huss  set  out,  October  11,  1414,  under  the  escort  and  protec- 
tion of  John  and  Henry  of  Chlum  and  Wenceslas  of  Duba,  all  his 
friends,  and  delegated  for  the  purpose  by  Sigismund.  The  caval- 
cade consisted  of  more  than  thirty  horse  and  two  carriages.  It 
was  preceded,  a  day  in  advance,  by  the  Bishop  of  Lubec,  who  an- 
nounced that  Huss  was  being  carried  in  chains  to  Constance,  and 
warned  the  people  not  to  look  at  him,  as  he  could  read  men's  minds. 
Already  his  name  had  filled  all  Germany,  and  this  advertisement 
was  an  additional  incentive  for  crowds  to  gather  and  gaze  on  him 
as  he  passed.  His  reception  served  to  foster  the  fatal  illusions 
which  he  nursed.  Everywhere,  he  wrote  to  his  friends,  he  was 
treated  as  an  honored  guest  and  not  as  an  excommunicate ;  no  in- 
terdict was  proclaimed  where  he  stopped  to  rest,  and  he  held  dis- 
cussions with  magistrates  and  ecclesiastics.  In  all  cities  he  posted 
notices  on  the  church-doors  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  Constance 
to  defend  his  faith,  and  that  any  one  who  desired  to  assail  it  was 
invited  to  do  so  before  the  council.  On  reaching^  Nuremburo:, 
October  19,  in  place  of  deflecting  to  seek  King  Sigismund  and 
obtain  the  promised  safe-conduct,  he  proceeded  direct  to  Constance, 
while  Wenceslas  of  Duba  went  to  the  court  and  brought  the  docu- 
ment to  him  there  a  few  days  after  his  arrival.  It  was  dated 
October  IS.f 

On  November  2  Huss  reached  Constance,  to  be  greeted  by  a 
crowd  of  twelve  thousand  men  assembled  to  look  upon  the  dread- 
ed reforming  heretic.  The  council  had  not  yet  been  opened.  On 
the  10th  a  letter  from  one  of  the  party  states  that  as  yet  no  am- 
bassadors from  any  of  the  kings  had  arrived,  and  though  John 


"  Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky  Documenta,  p.  237). — Von  der  Hardt  IV. 
754.— Jo.  Hus  Monument.  I.  2-4, 57,  68. — Palacky  Documenta,  pp.  70,  73. 

t  Richeutals  Chronik  des  Constanzer  Concils  p.  76  (Tiiliincfcn,  1882). — Jo. 
Hus  Epistt.  iii.  vi.  (Monument.  I.  57-8). — Monument.  I.  4rt. 


458  BOHEMIA- 

XXIII.  was  there  with  his  cardinals,  no  representatives  from  his 
rivals,  Gregory  XII.  and  Benedict  XIII. ,  had  presented  them- 
selves. What  to  do  with  the  Bohemian  Wiclvliilite  was  a  problem 
which  puzzled  pope  and  cardinal,  and  after  much  discussion  it  was 
determined  to  suspend  liis  excommunication,  and  permit  him  to 
frequent  the  churches  freely,  at  the  same  time  requesting  him  not 
to  be  present  at  the  solemnities  of  the  council,  lest  it  might  lead 
to  disorder.  Considerable  apprehension,  moreover,  was  felt  as  to 
a  sermon  to  the  clergy  which  he  was  understood  to  propose  deliv- 
ering. Huss  himself  was  utterly  blind  as  to  the  position  which 
he  occupied.  On  November  4,  the  day  before  the  council  was 
opened,  he  ^\Tote  to  his  friends  at  home  that  overtures  had  been 
made  to  him  to  settle  matters  quietly,  but  that  he  expected  to 
win  a  great  victory  after  a  great  fight.  On  the  IGth  he  men- 
tioned that  when  the  pope  was  celebrating  mass  every  one  but 
himself  had  assigned  to  him  some  function  in  the  ceremony,  and 
he  characterized  the  omission  as  neglect,  evidently  considering 
that  his  position  entitled  him  to  recognition  and  distinction.* 

He  knew  that  his  opponents  had  not  been  idle,  but  he  did  not 
fear  them.  He  had  been  preceded  in  Constance  by  two  of  his 
bitterest  enemies — Michael  of  Deutschbrod,  known  as  de  Causis, 
and  Wenceslas  Tipm,  Dean  of  Passau — and  these,  in  a  few  days, 
were  reinforced  by  a  more  formidable  antagonist,  Stephen  Palecz, 
fully  equipped  rrith  most  dangerous  extracts  from  Huss's  writings. 
Wenceslas  Tiem  had  been  the  bearer  to  Prague  of  the  bull  offer- 
ing indulgences  for  the  crusade  against  Ladislas  of  Naples,  and  his 
profitable  trade  had  been  broken  up  by  Huss.  Michael  de  Causis 
had  been  priest  of  the  Church  of  St.  Adalbert  in  the  Neustadt  of 
Prague ;  he  had  gained  the  confidence  of  King  Wenceslas  by  pre- 
tending that  he  could  render  profitable  some  abandoned  gold- 
mines near  Iglau,  and  the  king  had  intrusted  him  with  a  consid- 
erable sum  of  money  for  the  purpose.  After  working  a  few  days 
at  the  mines  he  decamped  to  Eome  with  the  funds,  which  enabled 
him  to  purchase  a  commission  as  papal  procurator  "<^e  causis 
fidei,^''  whence  his  appellation.  He  had  already,  in  1-112,  sent  to 
Rome  charges  against  Huss,  which  the  latter  pronounced  to  be 
lies.     The  day  after  Huss's  arrival  in  Constance,  Michael  posted 


*  Richentals  Chronik  p.  58. — Jo.  Hus  Epistt.  iv.  vi.  vii.  (Monument.  I.  58-9). 


HUSS'S    IMPRUDENCE.  459 

on  the  church-doors  that  he  would  accuse  him  to  the  council  as  an 
excommunicate  and  suspect  of  heresy,  but  Huss  treated  the  mat- 
ter very  lightly,  and  adopted  the  advice  of  his  friends  to  take  no 
notice  of  it  until  the  arrival  of  Sigismund,  who  was  not  expected 
until  Christmas.  Meanwhile  IIuss  himself  gave  ample  cause  for 
adverse  comment.  So  perfect  was  his  sense  of  innocence  and  secu- 
rity that  he  could  not  be  content  with  prudent  obscurity.  Almost 
immediately  on  his  arrival  he  began  to  celebrate  mass  in  his  lodg- 
ings. This  attracted  the  jieople  in  crowds,  and  was  necessarily  a 
cause  of  scandal.  Otto,  Bishop  of  Constance,  sent  John  Tenger, 
his  vicar,  and  Conrad  Ilelye,  his  official,  to  request  IIuss  to  cease, 
as  he  had  long  been  under  papal  excommunication ;  but  he  re- 
fused, saying  that  he  did  not  consider  himself  excommunicated, 
and  that  he  would  celebrate  mass  as  often  as  he  pleased.  Al- 
tliough  thus  defied,  the  bishop,  to  avoid  disturbance,  contented 
himself  with  forbidding  the  people  from  attendance.  Soon  after 
this  IIuss  placed  himself,  with  some  provisions,  in  a  covered  for- 
age-wagon which  was  to  be  sent  for  hay.  "When  the  knights 
who  were  responsible  for  him  could  not  find  him,  Henry  of  Las- 
tenbock  (Chlum)  rushed  to  the  burgomaster  and  demanded  that 
he  be  searched  for.  The  city  was  in  an  uproar ;  the  gates  Avere 
closed,  horse  and  foot  were  sent  in  every  direction  to  find  him, 
and  the  circumstance  was  easily  magnified  into  an  attempt  to 
escape.* 

The  sturdy  Bohemian  was  evidently  a  troublesome  subject  to 
deal  with.  In  the  eyes  of  the  faithful  it  was  quite  scandal  enough 
to  see  at  liberty  a  priest  who  had  openly  defied  a  papal  excommu- 
nication, and  had  defended  the  recognized  errors  of  Wickliff ; 
there  was,  moreover,  every  probability  that  he  would  carry  out 
his  audacious  design  of  preaching  to  the  clergy  a  sermon  in  which 
the  vices  of  the  papal  court  and  the  shortcomings  of  the  whole 
ecclesiastical  body  would  be  pitilessly  and  eloquently  exposed, 
and  it  would  be  proved  from  Scripture  that  the  whole  system  had 
no  warrant  in  tlie  law  of  Christ.  The  path  which  the  ])ope  and 
his  cardinals  had  to  tread  in  managing  the  council  was  likely  to 

*  Hus  Epistt.  V.  vi.  (Monument.  I.  58).— Monument.  I.  4  7*.— Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar. 
Bell.  Hussit.  ann.  1414  (Ludewig  Reliq.  MSS.  VI.  124).— Palacky  Document,  p. 
170.— Richentals  Chronik  i>p.  76-77.— Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky,  pp.  217-8). 
— Naucleri  Cliron.  ann.  1414. 


460  BOHEMIA. 

be  tortuous  and  thorny  enough  without  this  additional  element 
of  disturbance  and  turbulence.  It  was  far  safer  to  disarm  him  at 
once,  to  anticipate  his  attacks  by  treating  him  legally  as  one  ac- 
cused of  heresy  and  awaiting  trial.  Stephen  Palecz  and  Michael 
de  Causis,  and  a  crowd  of  other  Bohemian  doctors  and  priests 
whom  Huss  had  roughly  handled,  had  already  furnished  ample 
material  for  his  indictment,  and  in  the  inquisitorial  process  the 
first  step  was  to  make  sure  that  the  accused  should  not  escape. 
Even  had  the  case  been  one  in  which  bail  could  be  taken,  Huss 
had  the  whole  kingdom  of  Bohemia  at  his  back ;  bail  to  any 
amount  would  be  furnished  and  forfeited,  and,  once  safe  at  home, 
he  would  have  laughed  to  scorn  a  condemnation  for  contumacy. 
Such  might  reasonably  be  the  arguments  of  the  cardinals  when  the 
resolve  was  taken  to  arrest  him,  but  the  execution  of  the  design 
was  either  inexcusably  insidious,  or  the  manifestation  of  irresolu- 
tion which  reached  its  conclusion  only  by  degrees.  On  November 
28  the  cardinals,  in  consistory  with  the  pope,  sent  to  Huss's  lodg- 
ings the  Bishops  of  Augsburg  and  Trent,  with  Henry  of  Ulm,  the 
burgomaster  of  Constance,  to  summon  him  at  once  before  them  to 
defend  his  faith.  The  envoys  greeted  him  kindly,  and  though 
both  he  and  John  of  Chlum  protested  that  the  summons  was  a  viola- 
tion of  the  safe-conduct,  he  immediately  consented  to  go,  although 
he  said  he  had  come  to  Constance  to  appear  openly  in  the  council, 
and  not  secretly  before  the  cardinals.  He  added  that  he  could 
not  be  imprisoned  because  he  had  a  safe-conduct.  John  of  Chlum 
and  some  friends  accompanied  him  to  the  palace  occupied  by  the 
pope.  When  the  cardinals  told  him  he  was  accused  of  dissemi- 
nating many  heresies,  he  replied  that  he  would  rather  die  than  be 
con\acted  of  a  single  one ;  he  had  come  with  alacrity  to  Constance, 
and  if  he  was  found  in  error  he  would  wilKngly  abjure.  To  this 
the  cardinals  said,  "  You  have  answered  well."  No  further  exam- 
ination was  had,  but  John  XXIII.,  whose  policy  was  to  embroil 
the  council  with  Sigismund,  took  occasion  to  ask  John  of  Chlum 
whether  Huss  had  an  imperial  safe-conduct,  to  which  Chlum  re- 
plied, "  Holy  father,  you  know  that  he  has."  Again  the  pope 
asked  the  question  and  received  the  same  answer,  but  none  of  the 
cardinals  requested  to  see  the  document.  When  the  morning  ses- 
sion was  over,  guards  were  placed  over  Huss  and  John  of  Chlum. 
The  weary  afternoon  wore  away  in  suspense,  while  the  cardinals 


HUSS'S   ARREST.  4C1 

held  another  session  in  Avhich  Stephen  Palecz  and  Michael  de  Cau- 
sis  were  busy.  The  tedium  of  detention  was  only  broken  by  a 
simple-looking  Franciscan,  who  accosted  IIuss  and  asked  for  in- 
struction on  the  subject  of  transubstantiation,  and,  on  being  satis- 
factorily answered,  inquired  about  the  union  of  humanity  and 
divinity  in  Christ.  Huss  recognized  that  he  was  no  simple  in- 
quirer, for  he  had  asked  the  most  difficult  question  in  theology ; 
he  declined  further  colloquy,  and  on  the  retiring  of  the  friar  was 
informed  by  the  guards  that  he  was  Master  Didaco,  renowned  as 
the  subtlest  theologian  of  Lombardy.  About  nightfall  John  of 
Chlum  v/as  allowed  to  depart,  while  IIuss  was  detained,  and  soon 
after  Stejihen  and  Michael  came  exultingly  and  told  him  that  he 
was  now  in  their  power,  and  should  not  escape  tiU  he  had  paid  the 
last  penny.  He  was  taken  under  guard  to  the  house  of  the  pre- 
centor of  the  cathedral,  in  charge  of  the  Bishop  of  Lausanne, 
regent  of  the  apostolic  chamber,  and  after  eight  days  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  Dominican  convent  on  the  Ehine.  Here  he  was 
confined  in  a  cell  adjoining  the  latrines,  where  a  fever  soon  caused 
his  life  to  be  despaired  of.  His  sudden  death  would  have  been  a 
most  untoward  event,  and  the  pope  sent  his  own  physicians  to  re- 
store him.  It  was  in  vain  that  his  friends  in  Prague  procured 
from  Archbishop  Conrad  a  declaration  affirming  that  he  had  never 
found  Huss  to  vary  from  the  faith  in  a  single  word.  His  fate  had 
already  been  virtually  decided.* 

John  of  Chlum's  first  thought  on  regaining  his  liberty  was  to 
hasten  to  the  pope  and  to  expostulate  with  him.  When  the  safe- 
conduct  had  reached  Constance,  Chlum  had  at  once  exhibited  it  to 
John  XXIII.,  who  is  reported  to  have  declared,  on  reading  it,  that 
if  his  own  brother  had  been  slain  by  IIuss  the  latter  should  be 
safe  while  in  Constance  so  far  as  he  was  concerned.  Now  he  dis- 
claimed all  responsibility  and  threw  the  blame  on  the  cardinals. f 


*  Richentals  Chronik  p.  77. — Jo.  Hus  Monument.  I.  5  h. — Von  der  Hardt  IV. 
23,  33,  313.— Mladeuowic  Relatio  (Palacky  Document,  pp.  346-53). 

The  special  rigor  of  confinement  near  the  latrines  was  well  understood.  In 
1317,  wlien  John  XXII.  delivered  some  Spiritual  Franciscans  to  their  brethren 
for  safe-keeping,  Friar  Francois  Sanche  '■' jwsiierunt  fralres  in  quodam  carcere 
juxta  latrinasy  —  Historia  Tribulationum  (Archiv.  fur  Litteratur-  u.  Kirchen- 
geschichte,  1886,  p.  146). 

t  Von  der  Hardt  IV.  11-12,  22.— IVIladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky,  p.  251). 


162  BOHEMIA. 

This  question  as  to  the  safe-conduct  and  its  violation  has  been  the 
subject  of  so  warm  a  discussion,  and  it  iUustrates  so  completely  a 
phase  of  the  relations  between  the  Church  and  heretics,  that  its 
brief  consideration  here  is  not  out  of  place. 

The  imperial  safe-conduct  issued  to  IIuss  was  in  the  ordinary- 
form,  without  limitation  or  condition.  It  was  addressed  to  all  the 
princes  and  subjects  of  the  empire,  ecclesiastical  and  secular,  and 
to  all  nobles  and  magistrates  and  officials,  informing  them  that 
Huss  was  taken  into  the  protection  of  the  king  and  of  the  empire, 
and  ordering  that  he  be  permitted  to  pass,  remain,  and  return 
without  impediment,  and  that  all  help  which  he  might  require 
should  be  extended  to  him.  Thus  it  was  not  a  simple  viaticum 
for  protection  during  the  journey  from  Bohemia,  and  it  was  not 
so  regarded  by  any  one.  That  it  was  intended  as  a  safeguard 
during  the  council  and  the  return  home  is  shown  by  its  issue,  Oc- 
tober 18,  after  Huss's  departure  from  Prague,  and  its  reaching 
him  in  Constance  after  his  arrival  there.  That  his  imprisonment 
was  at  once  looked  upon  as  a  gross  \'iolation  of  the  imperial  pledge 
is  seen  in  the  protests  which  John  of  Chlum  affixed  to  the  church 
doors  on  December  15,  probably  as  soon  as  Sigismund  could  be 
heard  from,  and  again  on  the  24th,  when  the  king  was  near  Con- 
stance and  was  to  arrive  the  next  day.  This  paper  recited  that 
Huss  had  come  under  the  imperial  protection  and  safe-conduct  to 
answer  in  public  audience  all  who  might  question  his  faith.  That, 
in  the  absence  of  Sigismund,  who  would  not  have  permitted  it, 
and  in  contempt  of  his  safe-conduct,  Huss  had  been  thrown  into 
prison.  That  the  imperial  ambassadors  had  vainly  demanded  his 
release,  and  that  when  Sigismund  comes  he  should  plainly  make 
known  to  aU  men  his  grief  and  indignation  at  this  \aolation  of  the 
imperial  pledge.* 

The  suggestion  that  the  safe  -  conduct  was  a  mere  passport  de- 
signedly insufficient  to  protect  Huss  is  a  recent  discovery  which 
would  not  have  been  left  to  the  ingenuity  of  modern  times  if  it 
could  have  been  alleged  during  the  warm  debate  which  raged  over 
the  question  at  Constance.     That  nobody  thought  of  it  then  is  suffi- 


*  Palacky  Documenta,  p.  238.— Von  der  Hardt  IV.  12, 28.— Richentals  Chro- 
nik  p.  76. — Jo.  Hus  Epist.  Ivii.  (Monument.  1.75). — Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky, 
p.  253). 


THE    SAFE-CONDUCT.  463 

cient  proof  that  such  an  excuse  is  untenable.  Such  an  assertion 
would  have  been  all-sufficient  when,  May  13, 141 5,  the  Bohemians  in 
Constance  presented  a  memorial  to  the  council  in  which  they  re- 
ferred to  the  treatment  of  Huss  as  a  violation  of  the  safe-conduct. 
Yet  in  its  answer  the  council  had  no  thought  of  making  such  an 
allegation,  while  at  the  same  time  Sigismund's  services  in  the  quar- 
rel with  John  XXIII.  were  too  recent,  and  still  too  necessary,  for 
the  good  fathers  to  inflict  on  him  the  disgrace  of  publicly  declaring 
that  they  had  righteously  overruled  his  attempt  to  protect  a  here- 
tic. They  therefore  had  recourse  to  a  lie  manufactured  for  the  oc- 
casion, by  asserting,  in  spite  of  the  notorious  existence  of  the  safe- 
conduct  in  Constance  at  the  time  of  Huss's  arrest,  that  witnesses 
worthy  of  credit  had  proved  that  it  had  not  been  procured  until 
fifteen  days  after  that  occurrence,  and  therefore  that  no  public 
faith  had  been  violated  in  the  proceedings.  This  argument,  which 
Sigismund  himself  asserted  to  be  false  in  the  public  session  of 
June  7,  is  an  admission  that  the  public  faith  Avas  violated.  A 
single  fact  such  as  this  outweighs  all  the  special  pleadings  of 
modern  apologists.* 


*  Von  der  Hardt  IV.  189,  209. 

Berger's  labored  collection  of  safe-conducts  and  their  comparison  with  the 
one  given  to  Huss  (Johann  IIus  u.  Kouig  Sigmund  pp.  180-208)  prove  nothing 
but  his  own  industry.  Huss  went  to  Constance  as  an  excommunicate  to  defend 
himself  and  his  faith,  Sigismund,  knowing  tliis,  gave  him  a  safe-conduct  with- 
out limitation  or  condition.  The  only  contemporaneous  documents  with  which 
this  can  fairly  be  compared  are  those  offered  by  the  council  and  by  Sigismund 
to  John  XXni.  when  they  summoned  him  back  to  Constance,  May  3, 141.5,  and 
the  one  offered  by  the  council  to  Jerome  of  Prague,  April  17.  Of  these  the 
first  was  limited  by  the  clause  '■'•justitla  tamen  semper  salva,''''  the  second  by  "  in 
quantum  idem  dominus  rex  tenetur  sihi  dare  de  jure  et  servare  alios  salvos  condue- 
tus  sibi  datos,^''  the  third  by  "  quantum  in  nohis  est  et  fides  exegit  orthodoxa  "  (V. 
d.  Hardt  IV.  119, 143, 145).  No  ingenious  reasoning  can  explain  this  awa}'.  The 
allusion  in  Sigismund's  safe-conduct  to  other  letters  already  given  by  him  to  the 
pope  refers  to  those  which  John  had  required  of  him  and  of  the  city  of  Con- 
stance before  he  would  trust  himself  there  (Raynald.  ann.  1413,  No.  22-3).  These 
the  council  set  aside  as  coolly  as  it  did  that  of  Huss. 

Sigismund,  as  we  shall  see,  had  no  power  to  give  a  safe-conduct  that  would 
protect  a  heretic,  but  Burger's  argument  that  he  therefore  could  not  have  de- 
signedly issued  an  unlimited  one  to  Huss  (Berger,  op.  cit.  92-3,  109)  is  worthless 
in  view  of  his  readiness,  which  Berger  freely  concedes  (p.  85),  to  enter  into  en- 


464  BOHEMIA. 

Sigismund  at  first  fully  justified  the  confidence  reposed  in  him 
by  IIuss  and  John  of  Chlum.  lie  made  no  attempt  to  say  that  his 
letters  were  not  intended  to  protect  IIuss  from  prosecution,  but 
treated  them  as  having  been  wrongfully  violated.  As  soon  as  he 
had  heard  of  the  arrest  he  had  ordered  Huss's  release  with  a 
threat  to  break  open  the  prisons  in  case  of  refusal.  On  his  arrival 
at  Constance,  on  Christmas  Day,  his  indignation  was  boundless, 
and  there  was  consequently  great  excitement.  lie  protested  that 
he  would  leave  Constance,  and,  in  fact,  made  a  show  of  doing  so ; 
he  even  threatened  to  withdraw  the  imperial  protection  from  the 
council,  but  was  plainly  told  by  the  cardinals  that  they  would 
themselves  break  it  up  unless  he  yielded.  The  hopes  of  Christen- 
dom had  been  raised  to  too  high  a  pitch  as  to  the  results  expected 
from  the  assemblage  for  him  to  venture  on  such  a  risk.  Naturally 
faithless,  his  insistence  was  a  matter  of  pride,  and  self-interest 
easily  won  the  day.  We  have  better  materials  for  estimating  his 
character  than  that  of  any  other  prince  of  the  century,  and  from 
first  to  last  we  find  fully  justified  the  opinion  of  his  contemporaries 


gagements  which  he  knew  he  could  not  fulfil.  From  his  indignation  it  is  evi- 
dent that  he  was  unacquainted  with  the  niceties  of  the  canon  law ;  but  even  if  he 
were,  his  giving  the  letters  is  easily  explicable  by  the  fact,  which  Berger  has  well 
pointed  out  (pp.  100-1),  that  Huss's  certificates  of  orthodoxy,  obtained  in  August, 
were  laid  before  him  (Palacky  Document,  p.  70).  He  could  thus  easily  persuade 
himself  that  there  was  no  risk  of  his  pledge  causing  him  trouble.  It  was  of  the 
greatest  moment  to  him  that  Huss  should  be  reconciled  to  the  Church,  and  to  a 
man  of  his  temperament  it  was  inconceivable  that  Huss's  delicate  conscientious- 
ness would  in  the  end  render  martyrdom  inevitable. 

Hefele  (Conciliengeschichte  VII.  224),  following  Palacky,  calls  attention  to  the 
absence,  in  the  letter  of  the  Bohemian  magnates  to  the  council,  September  2, 
1415,  of  any  reproach  for  violating  the  safe  -  conduct,  and  he  argues  thence  that 
they  admitted  that  it  could  not  protect  Huss  from  judgment  as  a  heretic.  So 
little  is  this  the  case  that  they  emphatically  declare  that  Huss  was  not  a  heretic, 
and  if  there  is  no  allusion  to  the  safe-conduct  this  is  evidently  attributable  to 
their  referring  to  certain  previous  letters  to  Sigismund  which  the  council  had 
ordered  burned,  and  which  they  defiantly  desired  to  be  considered  as  embodied 
and  repeated  in  the  present  one  (Monument  I.  78).  Anything  they  might  have 
to  say  on  the  subject  must  have  been  said  in  those  letters,  which  presumably 
were  the  occasion  of  the  projected  decree  of  September  23,  1415,  punishing  as 
fautors  of  heresy  all  who  vilified  Sigismund  for  permitting  the  violation  of  his 
safe-conduct. 


SIGISMUND    YIELDS.  465 

that  he  was  wholly  unworthy  of  trust.  During  the  long  negotia- 
tions between  the  Council  of  Basle  and  the  Hussites,  in  which  he 
took  part,  we  see  him  endeavoring  impartially  to  deceive  both 
sides,  making  solemn  engagements  with  no  intention  of  fulfilling 
them,  and  regarded  by  all  parties  as  utterly  devoid  of  honor.  Un- 
fortunate in  war  and  chronically  impecunious,  he  was  ever  ready 
to  adopt  any  temporary  expedient  to  evade  a  difficulty,  and  to 
sacrifice  his  plighted  word  to  obtain  an  advantage.* 

It  cost  him  little,  therefore,  to  withdraw  from  the  assertion  of 
his  own  honor,  and  the  matter  was  so  speedily  arranged  that  when 
on  January  1, 1415,  the  council  formally  asked  him  that  free  course 
of  justice  be  allowed  in  the  case  of  Huss,  in  spite  of  the  pretext 
of  safe-conduct,  he  at  once  issued  a  decree  declaring  the  council 
free  in  all  matters  of  faith  and  capable  of  proceeding  against  all 
who  were  defamed  for  heresy ;  moreover,  he  pledged  himself  to  set 
at  naught  the  threats  which  were  freely  uttered  of  defending  Huss 
at  all  hazards.  Yet  the  discussion  stiU  continued  during  January, 
and  the  pressure  on  him  from  Bohemia  was  so  strong  that  for  a  while 
he  still  fluctuated  irresolutely,  but,  April  8,  he  formally  revoked  all 
letters  of  safe-conduct.  Huss  himself  had  no  hesitation  in  declar- 
ing that  he  had  been  betrayed  and  that  Sigismund  had  promised 
his  safe  return.  His  friends  took  the  same  position.  In  February 
an  assembly  of  the  magnates  of  Bohemia  and  Moravia,  gathered 
at  Mezeritz,  sent  an  address  to  Sigismund  pointing  out  in  language 
more  forcible  than  courtly  the  disgrace  and  humiliation  attendant 
upon  the  disregard  of  the  imperial  faith.     Again,  in  May,  after 


*  Martene  Thesaur.  II.  1611.  — Von  der  Hardt  II.  x.  255;  IV.  26.  — Palacky 
Documenta,  p.  612.— Berger,  Johann  Hus  u.  Konig  Sigmund,  pp.  133, 136. — Fisten- 
port.  Chron.  aim.  1419  (Halm  Collect.  Monument.  1. 404). — ^gid.  Carlerii  Lib.de 
Lcgationibus  (Monument.  Cone.  General.  Stcc.  XV.  T.  I.  pp.  531,  536-7,595-6, 
612-13,  662-73,  680-4,  688-93,  695-7).  —  Thomae  Ebeudorferi  Diar.  (lb.  p.  767).— 
Jo.  de  Turonis  Regestr.  (lb.  pp.  834-5). 

Even  in  France  Sigismund  was  reproached  for  surrendering  Huss  after  giving 
him  a  safe-conduct,  and  was  accused  of  disregarding  otlier  engagements  of  the 
same  kind. — (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  II.  1444-5.)  Yet  had  he  persisted  he  would 
have  been  liable  to  excommunication  and  heavy  penalties  as  an  inipeder  of  the 
Inquisition  ;  and  had  he  carried  out  his  threat  of  forcibly  liberating  Huss,  under 
the  l)ull  Ad  extirpanda  he  would  have  been  punishable  by  perpetual  relegation 
and  tlie  forfeiture  of  all  his  dominions  (Mag.  Bull.  Rom.  Ed.  Luxcmb.  1742, 1.  92, 
149). 

II.— 30 


466  BOHEMIA. 

the  flight  of  John  XXIII.  had  inspired  new  hopes  as  to  the  action 
of  the  council,  two  similar  assemblages  held  at  Briinn  and  Prague 
approached  him  with  even  stronger  representations.  It  was  all  in 
vain.  Sigismund  had  finally  taken  his  position,  and  he  redeemed 
his  hesitation  with  great  show  of  zeal.  When,  on  June  7,  Huss 
had  his  second  hearing  before  the  council,  Sigismund  thanked  the 
prelates  for  their  consideration  for  him  as  shown  in  their  leniency 
to  iluss,  whom  he  sternly  advised  to  submit,  for  he  could  look  for 
no  human  help ;  "  We  will  never  protect  you  in  your  errors  and 
pertinacity.  Rather,  indeed,  than  do  so  we  wiU  prepare  the  fire 
for  you  with  our  own  hands."  In  the  final  session  of  July  6,  Huss 
declared,  "  I  came  freely  to  the  council  under  the  public  faith 
promised  by  the  emperor,  here  present,  that  I  should  be  free  from 
all  constraint,  to  bear  witness  to  my  innocence  and  to  answer  for 
my  faith  to  all  who  call  it  in  question."  With  this  he  fixed  his 
eyes  on  Sigismund,  who  blushed  deeply.  The  impression  made  in 
Bohemia  by  Sigismund's  calculated  faithlessness  was  ineffaceable. 
When,  in  1433,  the  legates  of  the  Council  of  Basle  sought  to  throw 
the  responsibility  of  the  result  at  Constance  on  the  false  witnesses, 
John  Rokyzana  pertinently  asked  them  how,  if  the  council  was 
inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  could  have  been  misled  by  per- 
jurers, and  he  alluded  to  the  violation  of  the  safe -conduct  in 
terms  showing  that  it  had  been  neither  forgotten  nor  forgiven. 
This  had  been  practically  manifested  a  year  earlier,  in  September, 
1432,  when  the  Council  of  Basle  was  eager  to  have  Hussite  depu- 
ties come  to  it,  and  the  Bohemians  would  not  stir  without  the 
most  exaggerated  provisions  to  guarantee  their  safety.  Three 
safe-conducts  had  been  furnished  them — one  from  Sigismund,  one 
from  the  council,  and  one  from  the  city  of  Eger,  but  the}''  still  re- 
quired others,  from  the  city  of  Basle,  the  Margrave  of  Branden- 
burg, and  the  Counts  Palatine  Dukes  of  Bavaria,  one  of  whom 
was  the  protector  of  the  council.  These  were  very  different  from 
that  which  had  satisfied  the  simplicity  of  Huss.  Thus  Frederic  of 
Brandenburg  and  John  of  Bavaria  pledged  themselves  to  furnish 
suificient  troops  to  conduct  the  Bohemians  safely  to  Basle,  to 
guard  them  while  there,  and  to  bring  them  back  to  any  designated 
place  in  Bohemia.  The  princes,  moreover,  guaranteed  the  safe-con- 
ducts of  Sigismund  and  the  council,  and  agreed  to  forfeit  honors 
and  lands,  to  be  entered  upon  and  taken  in  possession  by  the  Bohe- 


THE    SAFE-CONDUCT   VALUELESS.  46T 

mians  in  case  of  any  unredressed  violation  of  the  pledge.  These  pre- 
cautions were  superfluous,  for  the  envoys  had  at  their  back  the 
terrible  Bohemian  levies  which  could  enforce  respect  for  plighted 
faith ;  but  when  reconciliation  had  taken  place  and  Sigismund  was 
seated  on  the  throne  of  his  fathers,  his  guarantees  were  again  re- 
garded as  valueless.  In  April,  1437,  he  urged  John  Rokyzana  to 
visit  the  council,  and  on  the  latter  alleging  fear  that  he  might  be 
treated  as  was  Huss  at  Constance,  the  emperor  was  greatly  moved 
and  exclaimed, "  Do  you  think  that  for  you  or  for  this  city  I  would 
do  aught  against  mine  honor  ?  I  have  given  a  safe-conduct  and  so 
also  has  the  council ;"  but  Rokyzana  was  not  to  be  tempted  by 
this  appeal  to  the  forfeited  imperial  honor,  and  steadfastly  refused 
to  go.* 

The  explanation  of  the  controversy  over  the  violation  of  the 
safe-conduct  is  perfectly  simple.  Germany  and  especially  Bohemia 
knew  so  Httle  about  the  Inquisition  and  the  systematic  persecution 
of  heresy  that  surprise  and  indignation  were  excited  by  the  appli- 
cation to  the  case  of  Huss  of  the  recognized  principles  of  the  canon 
law.  The  council  could  not  have  done  otherwise  than  it  did  with- 
out surrendering  those  principles.  To  allow  a  heresiarch  who  had 
become  conspicuous  to  all  Christendom,  like  Huss,  to  evade  the 
punishment  due  to  his  crimes  on  so  flimsy  a  pretext  as  that  of  his 
having  confided  himself  to  them  on  a  promise  of  safety  to  which 
the  public  faith  was  pledged,  would  have  seemed  to  the  most  con- 
scientious jurists  of  the  council  the  most  absurd  of  solecisms.  In 
point  of  fact,  the  best  men  who  were  there — the  Gersons,  the 
Peter  d'Aillys,  the  Zabarellas — were  as  unflinching  as  the  worst 
creatures  of  the  curia.  It  had  been,  as  we  have  seen,  too  long  a 
principle  of  inquisitorial  practice  that  the  heretic  had  no  rights, 


*  Von  der  Hardt  IV.  32,  Bll-13,  329.  —  Martene  Thesaur.  IL  1611.  —  Berger, 
Johann  Hus  u.  Konig  Sigmund,  p.  138. — Palacky  Documenta,  541,  543,  54G-53. — 
Jo.  Hus  Epistt.  xxxiii.,  liv.,  lix.,  Ix.  (Monument.  1. 68-9, 74-77).— Mladenowic  Relat. 
(Palacky, p.  314-15).— Narr.  Hist,  de  Condemnatione  (Monument.  H. 346  a;  Von  der 
Haidt  IV.  393).— -Egid.  Carlerii  Lib.  de  Legat.  (Monument.  Concil.  Gen.  Sffic.XV. 
Tom.  I.  p.  435).— Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VIII.  174-6, 179-83.— Jo.  de  Turonis  Reges- 
trum  (Monument.  Con.  Gen.  Stec.  XV.  T.  I.  p.  860). 

The  incident  of  Sigismund's  blush  has  been  disputed  by  some  recent  writers. 
It  is  a  matter  not  worth  controversy,  but  as  the  only  evidence  to  his  credit  in 
the  whole  affair  it  may  be  hoped  to  be  true. 


468  BOHEMIA. 

and  that  the  man  accused  of  heresy  by  sufficient  witnesses  was  to 
be  treated  as  a  heretic  until  he  could  clear  himself,  for  any  one  to 
hesitate  about  putting  it  in  force  in  this  case.  When  Sigismund 
complained  that  he  was  dishonored  by  the  imprisonment  of  Huss, 
the  canonists  of  the  council  promptly  assured  him,  in  the  words  of 
a  contemporary  orthodox  burgher  of  Constance,  that  "  it  could  not 
and  might  not  be  in  any  law  that  a  heretic  could  enjoy  a  safe-con- 
duct," and  though  this  was  prejudging  the  case,  we  have  seen  how 
customary  that  was  in  all  inquisitorial  trials.  These  words  Sigis- 
mund himself  virtually  repeated  in  his  address  to  Huss  in  the  ses- 
sion of  June  7:  "Many  say  that  we  cannot,  under  the  law,  pro- 
tect a  heretic  or  one  suspect  of  heresy."  When  Huss's  execution 
aroused  the  wildest  indignation  throughout  Bohemia,  expressed  to 
the  council  in  missives  of  scant  courtesy,  the  council  asserted  its 
position  in  a  decree  formally  adopted  September  23, 1415,  that  no 
safe-conduct  from  any  secular  potentate  could  work  prejudice  to 
the  Catholic  faith,  or  could  prevent  any  competent  tribunal  from 
trying,  judging,  and  condemning  a  heretic  or  suspected  heretic, 
even  though,  if  trusting  to  the  safe-conduct,  he  had  come  to  the 
place  of  judgment  and  would  not  have  come  without  it.  So 
thoroughly  did  the  council  cause  this  to  be  recognized  that,  in  1432, 
in  the  Convention  of  Eger,  stipulating  the  bases  of  negotiation  be- 
tween the  Hussites  and  the  Council  of  Basle,  it  was  expressly 
agreed  that  no  canons  or  decretals  should  be  alleged  to  derogate, 
infringe,  or  annul  the  safe-conducts  under  which  the  Bohemian  en- 
voys were  to  appear  before  the  council.* 

*  Richentals  Chronik  p.  78.— Von  der  Hardt  IV.  313,  531-22.— Chron.  Glass- 
berger  ann.  1415.  —  Martene  Ampl.  Collect.  VIII.  131-33.  Cf.  Noel  Alexander's 
justification  of  the  decree  of  September  23  (Hist.  Eccles.  Ed.  Paris,  1699.  T.  VIII. 
p.  496). 

It  is  customary  with  modern  Catholic  writers  to  stigmatize  as  a  Protestant 
calumny  the  assertion  that  the  Church  held  the  doctrine  that  faith  is  not  to  be 
kept  with  heretics.  See,  for  instance,  Van  Ranst,  Regent  of  the  College  of  Ant- 
werp, in  his  "  Historia  Hsereticorum  "  (4th.  Ed.  Venet.  1759,  p.  263),  together 
with  his  ingenious  endeavor  to  argue  away  the  case  of  Huss.  I  have  already  al- 
luded to  this  subject  (Vol.  I.  p.  228),  and  have  shown  that  it  was  a  recognized  prin- 
ciple of  the  Church  that  faith  and  oaths  pledged  to  heretics  were  void.  It  has 
also  been  seen  how  the  eflforts  of  the  popes  procured  the  insertion  in  the  public 
law  of  Eurojje  of  the  principle  that  suspicion  of  heresy  in  the  lord  released  the 
vassal  from  the  most  binding  engagement  known  to  the  Middle  Ages — the  oath 


THE    TRIAL    OF    H  L  b  tt.  469 

The  trial  of  Huss  has  been  the  subject  of  much  indignant  elo- 
quence.    It  is  the  most  conspicuous  instance  of  an  inquisitorial 


of  allegiance  (Lib.  v.  Extra,  vii.  xiii.  §  3).  When  thus  the  basis  on  which  society 
itself  was  founded  was  destroyed  by  heresy  all  minor  pledges  were  necessarily 
invalidated.  The  Church  did  not  allow  this  to  become  obsolete.  When,  in 
1327,  John  XXIL  sentenced  the  Emperor  Louis  of  Bavaria  aa  a  heretic,  he  not 
only  released  all  his  vassals  from  their  oaths  of  allegiance,  but  declared  void  all 
compacts  and  agreements  made  with  him  (Martene  Thesaur.  II.  702,  775-6,  791). 
So,  in  1463,  when  it  pleased  Pius  II.  to  declare  George  Podiebrad  a  heretic,  he 
released  the  communities  of  Breslau  and  Namslau  from  their  allegiance,  and  ex- 
communicated all  who  should  lend  their  aid  or  service  to  their  monarch  (^En. 
Sylvii  Epist.  401) ;  and  when  Frederic  III.  asked  him  to  compel  Breslau  to  sub- 
mit to  George,  lie  rejilied  by  arguing  that  heresy  dissolved  compacts  as  effectual- 
ly as  death  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  I.  1598-99).  When,  in  14G9,  Paul  II.  again  de- 
clared George  a  heretic  he  pronounced  that  each  and  every  obligation,  promise, 
and  oath  made  to  that  heretic  was  null  and  void,  for  faith  was  not  to  be  kept 
witli  him  who  kept  not  faith  with  God.  Acting  under  this,  when  George  re- 
leased from  prison  Wenccslas  of  Biberstein,  on  bail  of  six  thousand  florins  fur- 
nished by  John  and  Ulric  of  Hazemburg,  the  papal  legate  Rudolph  incontinently 
ordered  the  bailors  neither  to  surrender  the  accused  nor  to  pay  the  forfeit  (Lude- 
wig  Reliq.  MSS.  VI.  77). 

The  play  upon  the  double  meaningof  the  word  faith  by  which  this  was  epigram- 
matically  justified  was  seriously  accepted  by  Christendom.  In  April,  1415,  Fernan- 
do of  Aragon  wrote  to  Sigismund  earnestly  remonstrating  with  him  for  the  delay 
in  judging  IIuss,  and  expressing  the  hope  that  the  safe-conduct  would  not  be  al- 
lowed to  protect  him  ^^quoniam  noii  est  f  ranger ejidem  in  eo  qui  Deojidemfrangity — 
Andreae  Ratisponens  Cliron.  ann.  1414  (Pez  Thesaur.  Anecd.  IV.  iii.  626.  —  Pa- 
lacky  Documenta,  p.  540). 

All  statutes  and  laws  impeding  the  free  action  of  the  Inquisition,  directly  or 
indirectly,  were  null  and  void  ifso  jure,  as  we  have  repeatedly  seen  above  (see 
also  Farinaccii  de  Hajresi  Qusest.  182  No.  76) ;  and  what  Sigismund  could  not 
have  done  at  the  head  of  the  Imperial  Diet,  he  certainly  could  not  do  by  a  sim- 
ple safe-conduct,  and  no  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  was  bound  to  respect  it. 

If  the  Church  thus  disregarded  the  pledges  of  laymen,  it  was  equally  unmind- 
ful of  its  own  when  heretics  were  concerned.  Even  late  in  the  sixteenth  century 
the  bull  Multi]>Ucc«  inter  of  Pius  V.  annulled  all  letters  of  absolution  and  de- 
crees of  acquittal  for  heresy  issued  by  inquisitors,  bishops,  popes,  and  even  I)y  the 
Council  of  Trent,  showing  how  scant  was  the  ceremony  customarily  used  in  such 
cases,  and  how  completely  suspicion  of  heresy  deprived  a  man  of  all  rights  (Lib. 
T.  in  Septimo  iii.  x.). 

Even  without  this  general  principle,  however,  there  would  have  been  no  diffi- 
culty in  soothing  SigismuiuFs  scruples  of  conscience,  if,  pcrcliance,  he  had  any. 
The  system  of  the  mediajval  Church  so  completely  confused  the  ideas  of  right 


470  BOHEMIA. 

process  on  record,  and  to  those  unacquainted  with  the  system  of 
procedure  which  had  grown  up  in  the  development  of  the  Holy 
Office,  its  practical  denial  of  justice  has  seemed  a  wilful  perversity 
on  the  part  of  the  council,  while  the  sublimely  pathetic  figure  of 
the  sufferer  has  necessarily  awakened  the  warmest  sympathy. 
Yet,  in  fact,  the  only  deviations  of  the  council  from  the  ordinary 
course  of  such  affairs  were  special  marks  of  lenity  towards  the  ac- 
cused. He  was  not  subjected  to  the  torture,  as  in  the  customary 
practice  in  such  cases  he  should  have  been,  and,  at  the  instance  of 
Sigismund,  he  was  thrice  permitted  to  appear  before  the  whole 
body  and  defend  himself  in  public  session.  "When,  therefore,  we 
see  how  inevitable  was  his  condemnation,  how  he  could  have  saved 
himself  only  at  the  cost  of  burdening  his  soul  with  perjury  and 
converting  his  remaining  years  into  a  living  lie,  Ave  obtain  a  meas- 
ure of  the  infamy  of  the  system,  and  can  in  some  degree  estimate 
the  innumerable  wrongs  inflicted  on  countless  thousands  of  obscure 
and  forgotten  victims.  In  this  aspect  the  trial  is  worthy  of  ex- 
amination, for  though  it  presents  no  novel  points  of  procedure,  ex- 
cept the  concessions  made  to  Huss,  it  affords  an  instructive  exam- 
ple of  the  manner  in  which  the  inquisitorial  process  described  in 
preceding  chapters  was  practically  applied. 

The  case  against  Huss  was  rendered  stronger,  almost  at  the 
outset,  by  the  action  of  his  friends  at  home.  It  must  have  been 
shortly  after  his  arrival  in  Constance  that  Jacobel  of  Mies,  who  had 


and  wrong  that  the  ordinary  notions  of  morality  were  superseded.  The  power 
of  the  keys  was  such  that  a  papal  dispensation  could  release  any  one  from  an  in- 
convenient vow  or  promise,  no  matter  how  binding  might  be  its  form.  Sigis- 
mund's  father,  Charles,  when  Margrave  of  Moravia,  was  released,  in  1346,  by 
Clement  VI.  from  a  troublesome  oath  which  he  had  taken  (Werunsky  Excerptt. 
ex  Regist.  Clem.  VI.  p.  44) ;  and  the  sin  of  perjury  was  one  for  which  the  popes 
were  accustomed  to  grant  efficacious  pardons  when  it  was  committed  in  their  in- 
terest (Ludewig  op.  cit.  VI.  14).  It  was  deemed  only  a  reasonable  precaution  in 
compacts  for  the  parties  to  pledge  themselves  that  they  would  not  seek  a  re- 
lease by  a  papal  dispensation  (Hartzheim  IV.  329 ;  Preger,  Der  kirchenpolitische 
Kampf  unter  Ludwig  dem  Baier,  p.  59).  Sigismund,  in  the  case  of  Huss,  admitted 
that  his  pledge  was  dissolved  by  heresy  and  a  dispensation  was  superfluous,  but 
it  could  liave  been  had  for  the  asking.  In  view  of  these  facts  all  attempts  to 
argue  away  the  betrayal  of  Huss  are  useless,  nor  is  it  possible  to  accuse  the  good 
fathers  of  Constance  of  conscious  bad  faith.  They  but  accepted  and  enforced 
the  principles  in  which  they  were  trained. 


COMMUNION   IN    BOTH    ELEMENTS.  471 

succeeded  Michael  de  Causis  in  the  Church  of  St.  Adalbert,  com- 
menced to  administer  communion  in  both  elements  to  the  laity, 
and  thus  gave  rise  to  the  most  distinguishing  and  obstinate  feature 
of  Bohemian  heresy.  Zeal  for  the  Eucharist  had  long  been  a 
marked  peculiarity  of  religious  devotion  in  Bohemia.  The  synod 
of  1390  promised  an  indulgence  of  forty  days  to  all  who  bent  the 
knee  on  the  elevation  of  the  host ;  and  the  frequent  partaking  of 
the  sacrament  was  repeatedly  and  strenuously  urged  by  those  who 
have  been  classed  as  the  precursors  of  Huss.  Mathias  of  Janow 
had  even  ventured  to  recommend  that  the  cup  should  be  restored 
to  the  lait}",  but  the  question  had  never  reappeared  during  the 
stormy  years  in  which  lluss  and  his  friends  had  been  battling  for 
the  AVicldiffite  doctrines.  According  to  -i^neas  Sylvius,  a  certain 
Peter  of  Dresden,  infected  with  Waldensian  errors,  had  left  Prague 
with  the  other  Germans  in  1409,  but  was  driven  from  home  on 
account  of  his  heresy  and  took  refuge  again  in  Prague,  where  he 
supported  himself  as  a  teacher  of  children.  He  it  was  who  sug- 
gested to  Jacobel  the  return  to  the  ancient  practice  of  the  Church ; 
the  heretics,  delighted  to  find  a  question  in  which  they  were  clear- 
ly in  the  right,  eagerly  embraced  it.  The  custom  spread  to  the 
churches  of  St.  Michael,  St.  Martin,  the  Bethlehem  Chapel,  and  else- 
where, in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  King  Wenceslas  and  Archbishop 
Conrad,  who  vainly  threatened  secular  punishments  and  ecclesias- 
tical interdicts.  IIuss  was  speedily  communicated  Avith.  lie  ap- 
proved of  the  custom,  as  indeed  he  could  not  well  help  doing,  and 
his  tract  in  its  favor,  when  conveyed  to  the  disciples,  gave  a  fresh 
impetus  to  the  movement.  It  was  in  vain  that  on  June  15, 1415, 
the  council  condemned  the  use  of  the  cup  by  the  laity,  pronounced 
heretics  all  priests  so  administering  the  sacrament,  ordered  them  to 
be  handed  over  to  the  secular  arm,  and  commanded  all  prelates  and 
inquisitors  to  prosecute  as  heretics  those  who  denied  the  propriety 
of  communion  in  one  element.  For  more  than  a  century  the  Utra- 
quists,  or  Calixtins,  as  they  called  themselves,  were  the  ruling 
party  in  Bohemia.  The  consciousness  of  being  in  the  wrong  and 
of  having  to  justify  itself  by  all  manner  of  trivial  excuses  rendered 
the  council  additionally  eager  to  crush  the  insubordination  of 
which  Huss  was  the  representative.* 


Mandata  Synodalia  ann.  1390  (Holier,  Prager  Coucilien,  p.  40). — iEn.  Sylvii 


472  BOHEMIA. 

We  have  seen  that  Huss  was  arrested  November  28,  1414. 
Michael  de  Causis,  Stephen  Palecz,  and  others  of  his  enemies  had 

Hist.  Bolicin.  cap.  35. — Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell.  Hussit.  ann.  1414  (Ludewig  Rcliq. 
MSS.  VI.  125,  128-9).— Von  dcr  llaidt  III.  335  sqq. ;  IV.  288-91,  334,  342.— 
Jo.  Hus  Monument.  I.  42^4,  62,  72. 

The  relentless  obstinacy  with  which  the  Church  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries  refused  the  use  of  the  cup  to  the  laity  at  the  cost  of  Christian  unity 
and  unnumbered  troubles  is  perhaps  the  most  impressive  example  on  record  of 
the  perversity  of  sacerdotalism  in  sacrificing  essentials  to  non-essentials.  Ko 
one  denied  that  in  the  early  Church  communion  in  both  elements  was  adminis- 
tered to  all  the  faithful,  as  it  continued  to  be  without  interruption  in  the  Greek 
Church.  The  refusal  of  the  cup  to  the  laity  was  originally  a  Manichaean  cus- 
tom, in  imitation  of  the  corresponding  ancient  Izeshne  rite  of  the  Mazdeans. 
Communion  in  one  element  thus  became  a  mark  of  heresy,  and  was  condemned 
as  such  by  Leo  the  Great  (Leon.  PP.  I.  Serm.  xlii.  cap.  5),  about  the  middle  of 
the  fifth  century,  and  again  towards  its  end  by  Gelasius  I.,  whose  decretal  on 
the  subject  is  embodied,  without  comment  or  contradiction,  by  Gratian  in  the 
Decretum  (P.  ii.  Dist.  ii.  c.  12),  showing  that  it  was  still  good  law  in  the  twelfth 
century. 

When,  however,  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  the  belief  in  transub- 
stantiation  became  the  accepted  dogma  of  the  Church,  the  supreme  veneration 
felt  for  the  consecrated  elements  naturally  gave  rise  to  the  necessity  of  the  ut- 
most care  in  handling  them  and  to  excessive  dread  as  to  any  accidents  which 
might  occur  to  them;  and  the  penitentials  grew  full  of  all  manner  of  penalties 
inflicted  on  priests  who,  through  carelessness,  let  fall  a  crumb  of  the  body  or  a 
drop  of  the  blood,  for  which,  by  forged  decretals  of  the  early  popes,  a  false  an- 
tiquity was  claimed  (Decreti  in.  ii.  27).  Of  course  the  liquid  was  much  more 
subject  to  these  accidents,  and  to  decomposition,  than  the  solid,  and  the  minis- 
tering priests  were  sorely  tried  to  avert  such  profanation  and  its  consequences 
to  themselves.  At  first  they  adopted  the  ready  expedient  of  dipping  the  host 
in  the  wine-and-water,  and  thus  administering  both  elements  together,  which 
was  conducive  both  to  safety  and  comfort.  This  innovation  was  condemned  by 
the  Church,  but  was  suppressed  with  great  dilficulty.  Under  Gregory  VII.  the 
author  of  the  Micrologus  devotes  a  chapter  to  its  prohibition  (Micrologi  c.  19). 
In  1095  the  great  Council  of  Clermont  forbade  it,  except  in  cases  where  it  was 
demanded  by  prudence  or  necessity  for  the  avoidance  of  accidents  (Cone.  Claro- 
raont.  ann.  1095,  c.  28) ;  and  some  twenty  years  later  Paschal  II.  laid  down  the 
rule  that  it  was  only  admissible  in  the  communion  of  infants  and  the  sick  who 
could  not  swallow  the  bread  (Paschal  PP.  II.  Epist.  535).  In  a  Bohemian  document 
dating  about  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century  the  priest  carrying  the  viaticum  to 
the  dying  is  directed  to  dip  the  wafer  in  the  wine  so  as  to  avoid  accidents  and 
yet  be  able  to  administer  both  elements  (Hofler,  Prager  Concilien,  Einleitung,  p. 
ix.).  When  this  resource  was  denied,  while  the  veneration  of  the  sacrament  as 
the  flesh  and  blood  of  Christ  continued  to  develop,  the  custom  was  gradually 


ARTICLES    OF    ACCUSATION.  473 

presented  formal  articles  of  accusation  against  him.  These,  drawn 
up  in  the  name  of  Michael,  accused  him  of  maintaining  the  rema- 
nence  of  the  substance  in  the  Eucharist  after  consecration,  of  as- 


introduced  of  restricting  the  laity  to  the  solid  element,  in  administering  which 
there  was  less  liability  to  accident,  while  the  priest  continued  to  partake  in  both. 
About  1270  Thomas  Aquinas  tells  us  that  in  some  churches  the  bread  only  is  given 
to  the  laity,  as  a  matter  of  prudence,  to  avoid  spilling,  and  his  dialectics  are  equal 
to  the  task  of  proving  that  both  body  and  blood  are  contained  in  the  w^afer 
(Summa  iii.  Ixxx.  12).  The  convenience  of  the  innovation  led  to  its  extension, 
but  it  was  left  to  the  individual  churches,  and  no  authoritative  decree  was  is- 
sued withdrawing  the  cup  from  the  laity  until  the  Bohemian  controversy  led  to 
the  action  of  the  Council  of  Constance.  How  universal  the  custom  had  become 
without  authority  of  law  is  shown  by  the  special  privilege  granted,  about  1345, 
by  Clement  VI.  to  John,  Duke  of  Normandy,  son  of  Philip  of  Valois,  to  receive 
both  elements  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  I.  1456-7).  When  the  question  was  exhaust- 
ively debated  before  the  Council  of  Basle,  the  orator  of  the  council,  John  of  Ra- 
gusa,  freely  admitted  that  the  Hussite  practice  was  in  accordance  with  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  Church,  but  argued  that  it  could  be  changed  if  convenience  or  other 
reasons  demanded  it  (Ilarduin.  Concil.  VIII.  1712, 1740) ;  and  the  Cardinal  of  St. 
Peter  told  William,  Baron  of  Kostka,  the  Bohemian  chief,  that  the  cup  was  re- 
fused to  children  and  common  people  simply  as  a  precaution,  adding,  "  If  you 
were  to  ask  of  me  I  would  give  it,  but  not  to  the  careless "  (Petri  Zaticensis 
Liber  Diurnus;  Mon.  Concil.  Gen.  Stec.  XV.  T.  L  p.  315).  The  final  decision  of 
the  Council  of  Basle,  in  December,  1437,  admits  that  there  is  no  precept  on  the 
subject,  but  lay  communion  in  one  element  is  a  laudable  custom,  the  law  of  the 
Church,  and  not  to  be  modified  without  authority  (Cone.  Basiliens.  Sess.  xxx. ; 
Harduin.  VIII.  1234).  How  thoroughly  indefensible  the  Church  felt  its  position 
to  be,  yet  how  arbitrarily  and  despotically  it  was  resolved  to  enforce  that  posi- 
tion, is  most  clearly  shown  by  the  inquisitor  Capistrano,  in  1452,  when  he  heard 
that  the  cardinal  legate,  Nicholas  of  Cusa,  was  thinking  of  giving  Rokyzana  a 
hearing  on  the  subject  at  Ratisbon.  Capistrano  expressed  his  mind  freely  to  the 
legate :  "  If  we  excuse  the  heretics  we  condemn  ourselves.  ...  I  have  always 
avoided  a  debate  with  the  Bohemians  under  the  ordinary  rules,  for  they  study 
to  justify  their  heresy  from  the  ancient  Scriptures  and  observances,  and  they 
have  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  texts,  which  certainly  are  numerous,  in  favor  of 
communion  in  both  elements."  Capistrano  then  quotes  to  the  legate  tlie  bulls 
of  Nicholas  V.  sent  to  him,  in  which  the  Bohemians  are  denounced  as  schismat- 
ics, heretics,  and  disobedient  to  the  Roman  Churcli,  pointedly  adding  that  the 
disciple  is  not  above  the  teacher,  nor  the  servant  superior  to  the  master ;  he  had 
never  read  in  the  law  that  heretics  were  to  be  rewarded,  but  were  to  be  sharply 
punished  with  confiscation  and  tlie  bitterest  penalties  (Wadding.  Annal.  ann. 
1452,  No.  12).  So  it  liad  come  to  this,  that  those  wlio  admittedly  followed  the 
practices  of  the  Church  current  until  the  tliirteenth  century  were  to  be  con 


474  BOHEMIA. 

serting  the  vitiation  of  the  sacraments  in  the  hands  of  sinful  priests 
and  denying  the  power  of  the  keys  under  the  same  conditions,  of 
holding  that  the  Church  should  have  no  temporal  possessions,  of 

demiied  and  exteriuinated  as  heretics.  Disobedience  was  lieresy,  and  Rome,  for 
a  century,  endeavored  to  convulse  Europe  on  this  simple  punctilio. 

An  episode  of  this  question  was  tlie  communion  of  infants.  This  was  the 
practice  of  the  early  Chuich  (Cyprian,  de  Lapsis  c.  35),  and  St.  Innocent  I.  and 
St.  Gelasius  I.  had  both  declared  that  as  soon  as  infants  were  baptized  the  sacra- 
ment was  necessary  to  secure  them  eternal  life  (Innocent  PP.  I.  Epist.  xxx.  c.  5 ; 
Gelasii  PP.  I.  Ep.  vii.).  The  epistle  of  Paschal  II.,  quoted  above,  shows  that  this 
was  still  customary  in  the  twelfth  century,  but  the  same  causes  which  led  to  the 
withdrawal  of  the  cup  from  the  laity  induced  the  withholding  of  the  sacrament 
from  infants,  who  were  liable  at  any  moment  unconsciously  to  commit  sacrilege 
with  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ.  In  their  enthusiasm  for  the  Eucharist  the 
Bohemians  naturally  recurred  to  infantile  communion,  and  their  obstinacy  in  this 
gave  the  fxthers  of  Basle  infinite  trouble.  After  the  reconciliation  of  1436  the 
question  still  remained  disputed.  The  feeling  about  it  is  well  defined  by  the 
Bishop  of  Coutances,  legate  of  the  Council  of  Basle  in  Prague,  who  was  horror- 
stricken  when,  April  38,  1437,  Rokyzana  administered  communion  to  a  number 
of  infants,  and  one  of  them  ejected  the  wafer  from  its  mouth,  forcing  Rokyzana 
quietly  to  replace  it.  This  incident  was  evidently  regarded  as  the  most  con- 
vincing argument,  and  the  terms  in  which  it  is  alluded  to  show  how  profound 
was  the  terror  which  it  was  expected  to  create  (Jo.  de  Turonis  Regestrum ;  Mon- 
ument. Cone.  Gen.  Ssec.  XV.  T.  I.  p.  863).  At  the  Council  of  Constance  it  was 
gravely  argued  that  if  a  layman  allowed  the  wine  to  moisten  his  beard  he  ought 
to  be  burned  with  his  beard  (Von  der  Hardt  III.  369).  Gerson  was  not  quite  so 
absurd,  but  he  did  not  shrink  from  alleging  such  reasons  as  the  expensiveness 
of  wine  and  its  liability  to  turn  sour  (ib.  771  sqq.).  In  1391,  when  John  Malkaw, 
in  preaching  against  the  concubinary  priesthood,  hotly  declared  that  he  would 
rather  place  reverently  on  the  ground  a  consecrated  wafer  than  violate  his  vow 
of  chastity,  Bockeler,  the  Strassburg  inquisitor,  in  trying  him,  made  this  the 
ground  of  a  charge  of  heresy  with  respect  to  the  sacrament  of  the  altar  (Haupt, 
Zeitschrift  fiir  Kirchengeschichte,  1883,  pp.  366-7). 

In  older  times  the  Church  had  felt  no  such  exaggerated  reverence  for  the  ele- 
ments. In  646  Pope  Theodore,  when  he  excommunicated  Pyrrhus,  the  refugee 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  mingled  consecrated  wine  from  the  cup  with  the 
ink  with  which  he  signed  the  sentence  ;  and  in  869  the  Council  of  Constantino- 
ple adopted  the  same  device  in  condemning  Photius,  —  Clir.  Lupi  Dissert,  de 
Sexta  Synodo  c.  v.  (0pp.  III.  35). 

As  a  matter  of  course  the  vilest  stories  were  circulated  to  inspire  the  faithfiil 
with  abhorrence  for  the  Bohemian  innovations.  It  was  said  that  the  wine  was 
consecrated  in  bottles  and  barrels ;  that  the  sectaries  held  conventicles  in  cellars, 
where  they  would  partake  of  it  to  intoxication  and  then  commit  all  manner  of 
sexual  abominations  (Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell.  Hussit. ;  Ludewig  VI.  129-30). 


THE    INQUISITORIAL   PROCESS.  475 

disregarding  excommunication,  of  granting  the  cup  to  the  laity,  of 
defending  tlie  forty-fi\^e  condemned  articles  of  Wickliff,  of  excit- 
ing the  people  against  the  clergy,  so  that  if  he  were  allowed  to  re- 
turn to  Prague  there  would  be  a  persecution  such  as  had  not  been 
seen  since  the  days  of  Constantino,  and  of  other  errors  and  offences. 
This  was  more  than  sufficient  to  justify  his  trial,  and  the  process 
was  commenced  without  delay  by  the  appointment,  December  1, 
of  commissioners  to  examine  him.  These  commissioners  were,  in 
fact,  inquisitors,  and  the  council  at  large  served  as  the  assembly  of 
experts  in  which,  as  it  will  be  remembered,  final  assent  was  given 
to  the  judgment.  One  of  the  commissioners  at  least,  Bernardo, 
Bishop  of  Citta  di  Castello,  was  already  famihar  with  the  matter, 
for,  only  the  year  before,  as  papal  nuncio  in  Poland,  he  had  assisted 
in  driving  away  Jerome  of  Prague.  In  addition  to  the  articles  of 
Michael  de  Causis  there  was  a  kind  of  indictment  against  Huss 
presented  to  the  commissioners  by  the  procurators  and  promoters 
of  the  council,  reciting  the  troubles  at  Prague,  his  excommunica- 
tion, and  his  teaching  of  WickhlRte  heresies.* 

At  first  the  proceedings  were  pushed  with  a  vigor  which  seemed 
to  promise  a  speedy  termination  of  the  case.  As  soon  as  Huss 
recovered  from  his  first  sickness  there  was  submitted  to  him  a 
series  of  forty-two  errors  extracted  from  his  writings  by  Palecz. 
To  these  he  replied  seriatim  in  writing,  explaining  the  false  con- 
structions which  he  asserted  had  been  placed  on  some  passages, 
defending  some,  and  limiting  and  conditioning  others.  As  he 
was  denied  the  use  of  books,  even  of  the  treatises  which  were  the 
source  of  the  charges,  these  answers  manifest  a  wonderful  reten- 
tiveness  of  memory  and  quickness  and  clearness  of  intellect. 
Sometimes  he  was  visited  in  his  prison  by  the  commissioners  and 
personally  interrogated.  A  Carthusian,  writing  from  Constance, 
May  19,  relates  that  the  day  before  he  had  been  present  at  such 
an  examination  and  had  never  seen  so  bold  and  audacious  a  scoun- 
drel or  one  who  could  so  cautiously  conceal  the  truth.     On  the 

*  Palacky  Docuraeuta,  pp.  194-204,  506.  —  Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky,  p 
253). 

The  council  itself  recognized  that  its  proceedings  were  inquisitorial.  In  the 
sentence  of  Jerome  of  Prague  it  uses  the  phrase  "  Hobc  sanda  sy nodus  Constantien- 
sis  in  causa  inquisitionis  hcereticm pravitatis per  eamdem  sanctam  synodem  rnota.'" — 
-Von  der  Hardt  IV.  766. 


476  BOHEMIA. 

other  hand,  we  have  his  own  account  of  one  of  these  interviews 
The  commissioners  were  accompanied  by  Michael  and  Stephen  to 
prompt  them.  Each  article  was  read  to  him  and  he  was  asked  if 
such  was  his  belief ;  he  replied,  explaining  the  sense  in  which  he 
held  it.  Then  he  would  be  asked  if  he  would  defend  it,  and  he 
would  answer  no,  but  that  he  would  stand  to  the  decision  of  the 
council.  Nothing  could  well  seem  more  submissive  or  more  or- 
thodox, and  under  any  other  system  of  jurisprudence  conviction 
might  well  appear  impossible.  Heresy,  however,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  a  crime ;  once  committed,  even  through  ignorance,  a  simple 
return  to  the  Church  was  not  enough ;  belief  in  the  errors  must 
be  admitted  and  then  abjured,  before  the  criminal  could  be  con- 
sidered as  penitent  and  entitled  to  the  substitution  of  perpetual  im- 
prisonment for  the  death-penalty.  Huss  was  condemned  on  here- 
sies which  he  had  not  held  rather  than  those  which  he  had  taught.* 
Thousands  of  miserable  wretches  had  been  convicted  on  a 
tithe  of  the  evidence  now  brought  against  him.  Stephen  Palecz, 
a  man  of  the  highest  repute,  swore  before  the  commissioners  that 
since  the  birth  of  Christ  there  had  been  no  more  dangerous  here- 
tics than  Wickliff  and  Huss,  and  that  all  who  customarily  at- 
tended the  sermons  of  the  latter  believed  in  the  remanence  of  the 
substance  of  bread  in  the  Eucharist.  AVhat  Palecz  testified  there 
were  scores  of  others  to  substantiate  and  amplify.  "Witnesses 
were  there  in  abundance  to  prove  that  he  believed  in  the  rema- 
nence of  the  bread,  that  the  sacraments  were  vitiated  in  the  hands 
of  sinful  priests,  that  indulgences  were  of  no  avail,  that  the 
Church  of  Rome  was  the  synagogue  of  Satan,  that  heres}'"  was  to 
be  overcome  by  disputation  and  not  by  force,  that  a  papal  excom- 
munication was  to  be  disregarded.  Many  of  these  errors  he  in- 
dignantly denied  having  entertained,  but  it  was  in  vain.  In  vain 
he  wrote  out  in  prison,  as  early  as  March  5,  1415,  his  tract, 
"J9e  Sacramento  Corporis  et  Satiguijiis,''^  in  which  he  declared  that 
full  transubstantiation  took  place ;  that  God  worked  the  miracle 
irrespective  of  the  merits  of  the  celebrant ;  that  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ  were  both  in  the  bread  and  in  the  wine,  and  that 
he  had  taught  this  doctrine  since  1401,  before  he  was  a  priest.    In 


•  Palacky,  pp.  204-24.  —  Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky,  p.  254).  —  Martene 
Thesaur.  II.  1635.— Jo.  Hus  Epist.  xlviii.  (Monument.  I.  72). 


IMPOSSIBILITY    OF    DEFENCE.  477 

vain,  shortly  before  his  execution,  his  devotion  burst  forth  in  a 
hymn  in  which  he  exclaimed : 

"  O  quam  sanctus  panis  iste, 

Tu  es  solus  Jesu  Christe, 

Caro,  cibus,  sacramentum, 

Quo  non  majus  est  inventum !" 

In  vain  during  his  public  audience  of  June  8  he  disputed  earn- 
estly in  favor  of  the  same  belief.  The  witnesses  swore  to  the  con- 
trary. He  had  no  right  to  call  rebutting  testimony,  and  could 
only  appeal  to  God  and  his  conscience.  He  was  proved  a  heretic 
who  must  confess  and  abjure  or  be  burned.* 

His  only  possible  line  of  defence,  as  has  been  shown  above 
(Yol.  I.  p.  446)  would  have  lain  in  disabling  the  witnesses  for  mor- 
tal enmity — for  enmity  such  as  would  lead  them  to  seek  his  life — 
and  even  this  would  not  have  been  available  against  the  errors 
which  the  commissioners  had  extracted,  falsely,  as  he  asserted, 
from  his  writings.  As  regards  the  witnesses,  the  commissioners 
made  an  unusual  concession  to  him  when,  during  his  sickness  in 
December,  some  fifteen  of  them  were  taken  to  his  cell  that  he 
might  see  them  sworn.  Some  of  them,  it  is  said,  declared  that 
they  knew  nothing;  others  were  bitterly  hostile  to  him.  To 
this  extent  he  knew  some  of  the  names,  and  others  he  was  ac- 
quainted with  because  they  were  attached  to  depositions  taken  in 
advance  at  Prague  for  Michael  de  Causis,  which  by  some  means 
had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  Huss  before  he  started  for  Constance. 
Some  of  these  names,  probably  on  this  account,  were  attached  to 
the  article  on  the  subject  of  remanence  presented  in  the  hearing 
of  June  7,  but  in  the  final  sentence  no  names  are  mentioned ; 
the  witnesses  to  each  article  are  designated  simply  by  titles,  such 
as  a  canon  of  Prague,  a  priest  of  Litomysl,  a  master  of  arts,  a 
doctor  of  theology,  etc.,  and  when  Huss  asked  the  name  of  one  of 
them  it  was  refused.     This  was  strictly  in  accordance  with  rule.f 


*Epist.  xxxii.  (Monument.  I.  68).  — Von  der  Ilardt  IV.  430-8.— Jo.  Has 
Monument.  I.  39-41.— Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky,  pp.  276-8,  302,  318). 

Already  in  1411  Huss  energetically  disclaimed  to  John  XXIII.  belief  in  re- 
manence and  in  the  vitiation  of  sacraments  (Palacky,  p.  19.  Cf.  pp.  164-5, 170, 
174-85). 

t  Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky,  pp.  252-3).— Palacky,  pp.  73, 174,  318,  560.— 
Von  der  Hardt  IV.  308,  420-8. 


478  B  O  n  E  M I  A. 

Yet  the  hostility  of  those  Avho  testified  against  him  was  no- 
torious. At  the  place  of  execution  he  declared  that  he  was  con- 
victed of  errors  which  he  did  not  entertain,  on  the  evidence  of 
false  witnesses.  The  Bohemians  in  Constance,  in  their  memorial 
of  May  31,  1415,  to  the  council,  declared  that  the  testimony 
against  him  was  given  by  those  who  were  his  mortal  enemies. 
At  one  time  he  or  his  friends  thought  of  disabling  them  on  this  ac- 
count, but  when  he  asked  the  commissioners  to  permit  him  to  em- 
ploy an  advocate  who  could  take  the  necessary  exceptions  to  the 
evidence,  although  they  at  first  assented  they  finally  refused,  say- 
ing that  it  was  against  the  law  for  smy  one  to  defend  a  suspected 
heretic.  This,  as  we  have  seen,  was  strictly  true,  and  if  the  main- 
tenance of  the  rule  may  seem  harsh,  we  must  remember  on  the 
other  hand  that  the  friends  of  Huss  were  allowed  unexampled 
liberty  in  working  in  his  behalf.  Their  repeated  memorials  to  the 
council  and  their  efforts  with  Sigismund  made  them  guilty  of  the 
crime  of  fautorship,  and  if  there  had  been  any  disposition  to  en- 
force the  law  they  could  have  been  reduced  to  instant  silence  and 
have  been  grievously  punished.* 

It  had  not  taken  long  to  secure  evidence  more  than  ample  for 
Huss's  conviction,  and  if  his  burning  had  been  the  object  desired 
it  might  have  been  speedily  accomplished.  We  have  seen,  how- 
ever, how  much  the  Inquisition  preferred  a  penitent  convert  to  acre- 
mated  heretic,  and  in  this  case,  perhaps  more  than  in  any  other  on 
record,  confession  and  submission  were  supremely  desirable.  Huss, 
as  a  self-confessed  heresiarch,  would  be  deprived  of  all  importance, 
and  his  disciples  might  be  expected  to  follow  his  example:  as  a 
martyr,  there  was  no  predicting  whether  the  result  would  be  ter- 
ror or  exasperation.  The  milder  customary  methods  of  the  In- 
quisition were  therefore  brought  to  bear  to  break  down  his  stub- 
born obstinacy  by  procrastination,  solitude,  and  despair.  Had  his 
judges  desired  to  be  harsh  they  could  have  had  recourse  to  tort- 
ure, which  was  the  ordinary  mode  of  dealing  with  similar  cases. 
In  this  they  would  have  been  fuUy  justified  by  law  and  custom. 
The  less  violent  but  equally  efficient  device  of  prolonged  starva- 
tion could  likewise  have  been  employed,  but  was  mercifully  for- 


*  Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky,  pp.  253,  323).— Von  der  Hardt  IV.  188,  212, 
289.— Epist.  xlix.  (Monument.  I.  73  a). 


PROLONGED    IMPRISONMENT.  479 

borne.  Yet  the  slower  but  not  less  wearing  torture  of  indefinite 
imprisonment  was  not  spared  him.  He  was  kept  in  the  Domini- 
can convent  until  March  2-i.  Although  his  petition  to  be  al- 
lowed to  see  his  friends  was  refused,  they  were  permitted  to 
furnish  him  with  writing  materials,  and  he  employed  his  enforced 
leisure  in  composing  a  number  of  tracts  which,  written  without 
the  aid  of  books,  show  his  extensive  and  accurate  accpiaintance 
with  Scripture  and  the  Fathers.  His  sweet  temper  won  the  good- 
will of  all  who  were  brought  in  contact  with  him,  and  he  grate- 
fully alludes  to  the  kindness  with  which  he  was  treated  both  by 
his  guards  and  by  the  clerks  of  the  papal  chamber.  The  winning 
nature  of  the  man,  as  well  as  the  gold  of  his  friends,  probably  ex- 
plains the  correspondence  which  at  this  period  he  was  able  to 
maintain  with  them,  though  all  communication  with  him  was  for- 
bidden. Letters  were  conveyed  back  and  forth  clandestinely, 
sometimes  carried  in  food,  in  spite  of  the  vigilance  of  his  enemies. 
Michael  de  Causis  hovered  around  the  gate,  saying,  "  By  the  grace 
of  God  we  shall  burn  that  heretic  who  has  cost  me  so  many  flor- 
ins," and  procuring  that  the  wives  of  the  guards,  whom  he  sus- 
pected as  letter-carriers,  should  be  excluded.  All  this  ceased 
when  the  quarrel  between  pope  and  council  culminated.  On 
March  20  John  XXIII.  secretly  fled  from  Constance,  when  the 
guards  placed  over  Huss  delivered  the  keys  to  Sigismund  and  fol- 
lowed their  master.  The  council  then  handed  Huss  over  to  the 
custody  of  the  Bisho})  of  Constance,  who  carried  him  in  chains  by 
night  to  the  castle  of  Gottlieben,  some  miles  from  the  city  across 
the  Rhine.  His  friends  had  requested  tliat  he  should  liave  a 
more  airy  prison,  and  the  request  was  more  than  granted,  for  he 
was  now  confined  in  a  room  at  the  top  of  a  tall  tower.  Though 
his  feet  were  fettered  he  was  able  to  move  about  during  the  day, 
but  at  night  his  arm  was  chained  to  the  wall.  As  escape  Avas  im- 
possible, the  confinement  was  evidently  intended  to  be  punitive. 
Here  he  was  completely  isolated  from  all  intercourse  with  his  fel- 
low-beings and  left  to  his  own  dreary  introspection.  Disease 
added  to  the  harshness  of  his  prison.  From  the  foul  Dominican 
cell  to  the  windy  turret-room  of  Gottlieben,  he  was  exposed  to 
every  variety  of  unwholesome  conditions.  Stone,  an  affection 
hitherto  unknown  to  hmi,  tormented  him  greatly.  Toothache 
and  headache  combined  to  increase  his  sufferings.     On  one  occa- 


480  BOHEMIA. 

sion  a  severe  attack  of  fever,  accompanied  by  excessive  vomiting, 
so  prostrated  him  that  his  guards  carried  him  out  of  his  cell  think- 
ing him  about  to  die.  Yet  throughout  all  his  letters  from  prison 
the  beautiful  patience  of  the  man  shines  forth.  For  the  enemies 
who  were  pursuing  him  to  the  death  there  is  only  forgiveness  ;  for 
the  trials  with  which  God  has  seen  fit  to  test  his  servant  there  is 
only  submission.  He  overflows  with  gratitude  for  the  steadfast  af- 
fection of  his  friends,  and  sends  touching  requests  of  remembrance 
to  them  all ;  he  teaches  charity  and  gently  points  out  the  way  to 
moral  and  spiritual  improvement.  There  is  neither  the  pride  of 
martyrdom  nor  the  desire  for  retribution ;  all  is  pious  resignation 
and  love  and  humility.  Since  Christ,  no  man  has  left  behind  him 
a  more  affecting  example  of  the  true  Christian  spirit  than  John 
Huss,  while  fearlessly  awaiting  the  time  when  he  should  suffer 
for  what  he  believed  to  be  truth.  He  was  one  of  the  chosen  few 
who  exalt  and  glorify  humanity.  Yet  he  was  but  human,  and 
the  final  victory  was  not  won  without  the  agony  of  self-con- 
quest; while  at  times  he  comforted  himself  with  dreams  that 
God  would  not  suffer  him  to  perish,  but  that  like  Daniel  and 
Jonah  and  Susannah  he  would  be  rescued  when  all  help  seemed 
vain.* 

Hope  seemed  justified  when  the  rupture  occurred  between  the 
pope  and  the  council.  Ko  sooner  was  Huss  made  aware  of  the 
flight  of  John  XXIII.  than  he  begged  his  friends  to  see  Sigis- 
mund  instantly  and  procure  his  liberation.  The  answer  was  his 
transfer  to  the  tower  of  Gottlieben.  When  the  pope  was  brought 
back  a  prisoner  to  the  same  castle  of  Gottlieben,  and  the  council 
proceeded  to  try  and  condemn  him  as  a  simonist  and  dilapidator 
who  was  ruining  the  Church,  while  his  personal  vices  and  crimes, 
unfit  for  description,  were  a  scandal  to  Christendom,  such  confir- 
mation of  all  that  the  Wickliffites  had  urged  might  well  seem  to 
justifiy  the  expectation  that  Huss  would  be  released  with  honor. 
John  XXIII.,  however,  with  the  wisdom  of  the  children  of  the 
world,  essayed  no  defence ;  he  confessed  aU.  that  was  laid  to  his 


*  Von  der  Hardt  IV.  47.— Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky,  p.  255).— Palacky,  p. 
541. — Jo.  Hus  Monument.  I.  7,  29-42. — Epistt.  xi.,  xxvii.,  xxx.,  xxxi.,  xxxii., 
xxxvi.,  xlvii.,  li.,  lii.,  Ivi.  (Monument.  I.  60,  65-9,  72-5).— Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell. 
Hussit.  (Ludewig  Reliq.  MSS.  VI.  128-9). 


CONDEMNATION    INEVITABLE.  481 

charge,  submitted  to  the  council,  and  was  eventually,  after  a  few 
years  of  imprisonment,  rewarded  by  Martin  V.  with  the  lofty  post 
of  Dean  of  the  Sacred  College.  Huss,  with  the  constancy  of  the 
children  of  light,  refused  to  perjure  himself  by  confession,  and 
there  could  be  no  escape  for  him.* 

The  council  had  been  assembled  to  reform  the  Church,  and  was 
performing  its  duty  in  its  own  way,  but  nothing  could  be  further 
from  the  thouglits  of  its  most  zealous  members  than  the  revolu- 
tionary reform  of  Wickliff  and  Huss,  which  would  reduce  the 
Church  to  apostolic  poverty  and  deprive  it  of  all  temporal  power. 
Besides  the  doctrinal  errors,  attested  by  abundant  Avitnesses,  there 
was  ample  material  in  Huss's  writings  to  prove  him  a  most  dan- 
gerous enemy  of  the  whole  ecclesiastical  system.  He  had  written 
his  tract '''' De  Ahlatione  Bonorum''''  in  defence  of  one  of  the  forty- 
five  condemned  Wickhfflte  articles  which  asserted  that  the  tem- 
poral lord  could  at  will  deprive  of  their  temporalities  ecclesiastics 
who  were  habitual  delinquents.  His  tract "  De  Dec'imis  "  defended 
another  of  the  articles,  contending  that  no  one  in  mortal  sin  could 
be  a  temporal  lord,  a  prelate,  or  a  bishop.  John  Gerson,  one  of 
the  leading  members  of  the  council,  had,  as  Chancellor  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris,  before  coming  to  Constance,  drawn  up  a  series  of 
twenty  such  dangerous  errors,  extracted  from  Huss's  treatise  "  De 
Ecclesia^''  and  had  urged  Archbishop  Conrad  of  Prague  to  extir- 
pate the  Wicldiffite  heresy  by  calling  in  the  secular  arm.  Huss, 
in  his  deductions  from  the  WicklifRte  doctrines  of  predestination, 
had  overthrown  the  very  foundations  of  the  hierarchical  system. 
Among  the  cardinals  in  the  council,  Ottone  Colonna  had  fulminated 
the  papal  excommunication  which  Huss  had  disregarded ;  Zabarel- 
la  and  Brancazio  had  been  actively  concerned  in  the  proceedings 
against  him  l^efore  the  curia — all  of  these  and  many  others  were 
thoroughly  familiar  with  his  revolutionary  doctrines.  "What  was 
to  become  of  the  theocracy  founded  by  Hildebrand  if  such  teach- 
ings were  to  pass  unreproved,  if  their  assertor  was  to  be  allowed 
to  defend  them  and  was  only  to  be  adjudged  a  heretic  when  over- 
come in  scholastic  disputation  ?  The  whole  structure  of  saccrdo- 
tahsm  would  be  undermined  and  the  whole  bodv  of  canon  law 


*  Epist.  Hi.  (Monument.  I.  75).— Theod.  a  Niem  de  Vit.  Joann.  XXIII.  Libw 
III.  c.  5.— Raynald.  ann.  1419,  No.  5. 
11.-31 


482  BOHEMIA. 

would  be  disregarded  if  so  monstrous  a  proposition  should  be  con- 
ceded. To  the  fathers  of  the  council  nothing  could  well  seem 
more  preposterous.  Then  Michael  de  Causis  had  intercepted  a  let- 
ter, written  by  Huss  from  prison,  in  which  the  ministers  of  the 
council  were  alluded  to  as  the  servants  of  Antichrist,  and  when  this 
was  brought  to  him  by  the  commissioners  he  acknowledged  its 
authenticity.  Besides  all  this,  he  had  remained  under  excom- 
munication for  suspicion  of  heresy  during  long  years,  during 
which  he  had  constantly  performed  divine  service,  and  he  had 
called  the  pope  an  Antichrist  whose  anathema  was  to  be  disre- 
garded. This  of  itself,  as  we  have  seen,  constituted  him  a  self- 
convicted  heretic* 

It  thus  was  idle  to  suppose  that  the  council,  because  it  had  de- 
posed John  XXIII.,  would  set  free  so  contumacious  a  heretic,  whose 
very  virtues  only  rendered  him  the  more  dangerous.  The  inquis- 
itorial process  must  go  on  to  the  end.  Even  during  the  bitterest 
and  most  doubtful  portion  of  the  contest,  before  the  pope  had 
been  brought  back  to  Constance,  the  successive  steps  of  the  trial 
received  due  attention.  On  April  IT  four  new  commissioners 
were  appointed  to  replace  the  previous  ones,  whose  commissions 
from  the  pope  were  held  to  have  expired,  and  the  new  commission 
was  expressly  granted  power  to  proceed  to  final  sentence.  The 
only  doubt  arising  was  whether  the  condemnation  of  Wickliff, 
with  which  the  case  of  Huss  was  inextricably  related,  should  be 
uttered  in  the  name  of  the  pope  or  in  that  of  the  council,  and  its 
publication.  May  4,  in  the  latter  form,  showed  that  the  assembly 
had  no  hesitation  as  to  its  duty  in  stamping  out  the  heres}^  of  the 
master  and  of  the  disciple.  The  active  measures  also,  which  dur- 
ing this  period  were  taken  against  Jerome  of  Prague,  were  an  in- 
dication not  to  be  mistaken  of  the  purposes  of  the  council.  Yet 
how  little  the  friends  of  Huss  understood  the  real  position  of  af- 
fairs, and  how  false  hopes  had  been  excited  by  the  rupture  wiih. 
the  pope,  is  seen  in  their  efforts  at  this  juncture  to  press  the  trial 
to  a  conclusion.  Under  the  procrastinating  policy  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion it  is  quite  possible  that  Huss  would  have  been  left  to  his  soli- 
tary musings  for  a  time  indefinitely  longer,  in  hopes  that  his  resolu- 


*  Jo.  Hus  Monument. 1. 118,128. — Epist.  xliii.  (Ib.71  a). — Palacky  Docuuienta, 
pp.  60,  185,  523-8.— Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky,  p.  301). 


URGENCY  OF  THE  BOHEMIANS.         483 

tion  woald  at  last  give  way,  but  for  the  efforts  o^:  his  friends,  who 
hoped  to  secure  his  release.  On  May  13  they  presented  a  me- 
morial complaining  of  his  treatment,  imprisoned  in  irons  and  per- 
ishing  of  hunger  and  thirst,  without  trial  or  conviction,  in  viola- 
tion of  the  safe-conduct  and  of  the  pledged  faith  of  the  empire. 
They  also  remonstrated  against  the  stories  which  were  circulated 
to  prejudice  the  case,  that  in  Bohemia  the  blood  of  Christ  was 
carried  around  in  bottjes,  and  that  cobblers  heard  confession  and 
celebrated  mass.  On  May  16  the  council  replied  to  the  effect 
that  as  far  back  as  11:11  Huss  had  had  a  hearing  before  the  Holy 
See  and  had  been  excommunicated,  and  had  since  then  not  only 
proved  himself  a  heretic,  but  a  heresiarch,  by  remaining  under  ex- 
communication and  preaching  forbidden  doctrines,  even  in  Con- 
stance itself.  As  for  the  safe-conduct,  we  have  seen  how  it  was 
pretended  to  have  been  procured  after  the  arrest.  This  elusive 
answer  might  have  shown  how  the  case  was  already  prejudged  by 
those  who  were  to  decide  it ;  yet  again,  on  May  18,  the  Bohemi- 
ans presented  a  rejoinder  urging  promptitude.  It  was  fuUy  ex- 
pected in  Constance  that  a  session  would  be  held  on  the  22d,  at 
which  Huss  would  be  condemned ;  but  about  this  time  attention 
was  engrossed  by  the  trial  of  John  XXIII.,  who  was  at  length 
deposed.  May  29,  and  notified  of  his  deposition  on  the  31st. 
Sigismund  was  now  preparing  for  the  voyage  to  Spain,  which  was 
expected  to  take  place  in  June,  and  if  anything  was  to  be  done 
with  Huss  before  his  departure  further  delay  was  inadmissible. 
Probably  the  Bohemians  imagined  that  in  some  indefinable  way 
he  would  yet  save  their  leader.  On  May  31,  therefore,  they 
presented  another  memorial,  reiterating  their  complaints  about  the 
safe-conduct  and  asking  for  a  speedy  public  hearing.  Sigismund 
entered  during  the  discussion  and  strenuously  urged  the  public 
audience,  which  was  finally  promised.  IIuss's  friends  further 
urged  that  he  should  be  brought  from  his  prison  and  be  allowed 
a  few  days  to  recover  from  his  harsh  incarceration,  and  a  show 
was  made  of  complying  with  the  request.  On  the  same  day  John 
of  Clilum  had  the  satisfaction  of  forwarding  to  Gottlieben  an 
order  for  the  transmission  of  Huss  to  Constance.  The  next  day, 
June  1,  a  special  deputation  from  the  council  followed  and  pre- 
sented to  him  the  thirty  articles  which  liad  been  ])roved  against 
him.     They  reported  that  he  submitted  himself  to  the  council,  but 


484  BOHEMIA. 

he  maintained  that  he  only  agreed  to  do  so  on  such  points  as  he 
could  be  proved  to  have  taught  erroneously.  At  last  he  was 
brouirht  to  Constance  in  chains  and  confined  in  the  Franciscan 
convent.* 

In  the  routine  of  the  inquisitorial  process  there  was  no  neces- 
sity for  further  parley  with  the  accused.  The  articles  of  heresy 
were  proved  against  him,  and  if  he  continued  obstinately  to  deny 
them  delivery  to  the  secular  arm  was  a  matter  of  course.  There 
had  been  no  intention  of  permitting  such  an  innovation  on  the 
regular  procedure  as  a  public  audience,  but  Sigismund  could  see, 
if  the  council  could  not,  that  its  denial  Avould  have  a  most  unfor- 
tunate influence  on  public  opinion  in  Bohemia,  where,  in  the  pre- 
vailing ignorance  as  to  the  inquisitorial  rules,  it  would  be  claimed 
that  the  council  was  afraid  to  face  their  champion  and  was  forced 
to  condemn  him  unheard.  It  could,  in  reaUty,  have  no  influence 
on  the  result,  for  the  case  was  already  virtually  decided,  but  Huss's 
friends  could  not  recognize  this,  and  an  attempt  was  made,  without 
success,  to  speculate  on  their  eagerness,  by  a  demand  for  two  thou- 
sand florins  to  defray  the  alleged  expenses.  The  audiences  which 
followed  were  tiius  wholly  irregular,  and  may  be  briefly  dismissed 
as  in  no  sense  entitled  to  the  importance  which  has  commonly 
been  ascribed  to  them.f 

On  June  5  a  congregation  of  the  council  was  held  in  the  Fran- 
ciscan convent.  At  first  the  intention  was  to  carry  out  the  ordi- 
nary inquisitorial  procedure  by  considering,  in  the  absence  of  Huss, 
the  articles  proved  against  him,  but  Peter  Mladenowic  hastened 
to  John  of  Chlum  and  Wenceslas  of  Duba,  who  forthwith  appealed 
to  Sigismund.  The  latter  at  once  sent  the  Palsgrave  Louis  and 
Frederic  Burggrave  of  Nuremberg  to  the  council,  with  orders  that 
nothing  should  be  done  until  Huss  was  present  and  his  books 
were  before  them  for  verification.  At  length,  therefore,  he  had 
the  long-desired  opportunity  of  meeting  his  adversaries,  and  de- 
fending himself  in  public  debate.  The  books  from  which  his  errors 
had  been  extracted  were  laid  before  him — his  treatise  "  De  Eccle- 


*  Von  der  Hardt  IV.  100,  118,  136,  153,  189,  200,  212-13,  288-90,  296,  306.— 
Martene  Thesaur.  II.  1635.— Harduin.  VIII.  280.— Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky, 
pp.  256-72). 

t  Epistt.  xliii.,  xlvii.  (Monument.  I.  71,  72).— Von  der  Hardt  IV.  291,  306-7. 


THE    PUBLIC    HEARINGS.  485 

sia  "  and  his  tracts  against  Stephen  Palecz  and  Stanislaus  of  Znaim 
— and  he  acknowledged  them  to  be  his.  The  articles  were  taken 
up  in  succession.  He  was  required  to  answer  to  each  a  simple  yea 
or  nay,  and  when  he  desired  to  explain  anything  a  scene  of  inde- 
scribable confusion  arose.  When  he  asked  to  be  taught  wherein 
he  had  erred  he  w^as  told  that  he  must  first  recant  his  heresies, 
which  was  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  law.  The  day  wore 
away  in  the  discussion,  and  it  had  to  be  renewed  on  the  Tth,  and 
again  on  the  8th — Sigismund  being  present  on  these  latter  occa- 
sions. Huss  defended  himself  gallantly,  with  wonderful  quickness 
of  thought  and  dialectical  skill,  but  nothing  could  be  more  unlike 
the  free  debate  which  he  had  deluded  himself  into  anticipating 
when  he  left  Prague.  Although  the  Cardinal  of  Ostia,  who  pre- 
sided, endeavored  to  show  fairness,  the  assembly  at  times  became 
a  howling  mob  with  shouts  of  "  Burn  him !  Burn  him  !"  Interrup- 
tions were  incessant,  he  was  baited  on  all  sides  with  questions,  and 
frequently  his  replies  were  drowned  in  clamor.  As  a  judicial  act 
it  was  a  mockery,  but  it  served  the  purpose  desired  by  Sigismund, 
and  the  Church  had  shown  itself  not  afraid  of  public  discussion 
with  the  heresiarch.  At  the  end  of  the  third  day  of  this  tumul- 
tuous wrangling  Huss  was  exhausted  almost  to  fainting.  The 
night  before  toothache  had  deprived  him  of  sleep,  an  attack  of 
fever  supervened,  and  six  months  of  harsh  imprisonment  had  left 
him  little  physical  endurance.  The  proceedings  terminated  with 
the  cardinals  urging  him  to  recant  and  promising  him  merciful 
treatment  if  he  would  throw  himself  upon  the  mercy  of  the  coun- 
cil. He  asked  for  another  hearing,  saying  that  he  would  submit 
if  his  arguments  and  authorities  were  insufficient.  To  this  Car- 
dinal Peter  d'Ailly  replied  that  the  unanimous  decision  of  the 
doctors  was  that  he  must  confess  his  error  in  publishing  the 
articles  ascribed  to  him,  he  must  swear  never  in  future  to  believe 
or  teach  them,  and  must  recant  them  publicly.  Huss  begged  the 
council  for  the  love  of  God  not  to  force  him  to  wrong  his  conscience, 
for  abjuration  meant  the  renunciation  of  an  error  previously  enter- 
tained, and  many  of  those  brought  against  him  he  had  never  held. 
Sigismund  asked  him  why  he  could  not  renounce  errors  which  he 
said  had  been  ascribed  to  him  through  perjury,  and  Huss  had  to 
explain  to  him  the  technical  meaning  of  abjuration.  One  member 
of  the  council  even  objected  to  the  accused  being  admitted  to  re- 


486  BOHEMIA. 

cantation,  because  he  was  not  to  be  trusted,  but  this  would  have 
been  wholly  illegal.  Even  in  the  case  of  relapse  the  heretic  al- 
ways had  a  right  to  confess  and  recant,  and  the  council  was  not 
to  be  betrayed  into  so  manifest  a  denial  of  justice.  It  was  im- 
possible, in  such  a  crowd  of  eager  persecutors,  to  maintain  the 
legal  forms  in  all  strictness,  and  there  followed  a  number  of  volun- 
teer accusations  by  individuals,  on  which  an  irregular  discussion 
could  not  be  repressed.  Finally,  as  Huss  was  withdrawn,  John  of 
Chlum  succeeded  in  giving  him  a  friendly  grasp  of  the  hand  and 
a  word  of  sympathy.  To  the  forlorn  and  despised  heretic  that 
touch  and  voice  were  a  solace  which  nerved  him  for  the  yet  harder 
trials  of  the  succeeding  weeks.* 

His  conscientious  endurance  was  now  to  be  tested  to  the  utter- 
most. The  wise  general  policy  of  the  Inquisition,  which  preferred 
a  confessed  penitent  to  a  mart}^',  was  specially  applicable  in  this 
case,  for  though  Sigismund  and  the  council  underestimated  the 
Bohemian  fervor  and  obstinacy,  the  dullest  could  see  that  Huss 
confessing  to  having  taught  heresy  and  humbly  seeking  reconcil- 
iation would  dispirit  his  followers,  while  no  one  could  guess  the 
extent  of  tlie  conflagration  which  might  spread  from  his  pyre. 
Accordingly  efforts  were  redoubled  to  induce  him  to  confess  and 
recant.  Sigismund  had  prepared  the  way  by  assuring  him  during 
the  public  audience  that  no  mercy  would  be  shown  him  and  that 
persistent  denial  would  bring  him  to  the  stake,  while  he  was  not 
notified  that  behind  the  bland  promises  of  mercy  for  submission 
there  lay  a  sentence,  which,  while  expressing  joy  at  his  humbly 
seeking  absolution,  pronounced  him  to  be  pernicious,  scandalous, 
and  seditious,  and  condemned  him  to  degradation  from  the  priest- 
hood and  to  perpetual  imprisonment.  The  council  could  do  no 
otherwise,  for  this,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  punishment  provided 
by  the  canons  for  repentant  heretics,  and  yet  in  estimating  the 


•  Jo.  Hus  Monument.  I.  25  h.—Yon  der  Hardt  IV.  307,  311-29.— Epistt.  w, 
XV.,  xxxvi.  (Monument.  I.  60-2,  69).— Palacky,  pp.  275,  308-15. 

Tlie  attempt  to  deny  to  Huss  the  inalienable  privilege  of  recantation  •wh'h 
based  upon  a  mistranslated  passage  of  his  Bohemian  address  to  his  disciples,  ir\ 
■which  he  was  made  to  assure  them  that  if  he  was  forced  to  abjure,  it  would  onlv 
be  with  the  lips  and  not  with  the  heart  (Palacky,  pp.  274,  311).  In  such  matters 
the  council  was  at  the  mercy  of  Huss's  Bohemian  enemies. 


DIFFICULTY    OF    ABJURATION.  487 

noble  firmness  of  Huss  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  no  intimation 
of  it  seems  to  have  been  made  to  him.* 

The  obstacle  in  the  way  of  Huss's  abjuration  lay  not  so  much 
in  the  heresies  which  he  had  taught,  as  in  those  which  he  had  not 
tauglit.  On  legal  testimony  his  judges  had  found  him  guilty  of 
all,  but  the  worst  of  them,  such  as  the  remanence  of  the  substance 
and  the  vitiation  of  the  sacraments  in  polluted  hands,  he  denied 
energetically  ever  to  have  held  or  expressed.  Many  of  the  errors 
extracted  from  his  works,  moreover,  he  repudiated,  asserting  that 
the  passages  had  been  garbled  and  perverted.  In  the  eye  of  the 
law  this  denial  was  mere  contumacy  which  only  aggravated  his 
guilt.  The  first  condition  of  reconciliation  was  confessing  under 
oath  that  he  was  guilty  of  having  held  these  errors  and  then  ab- 
juring them.  This  was  committing  perjury  to  God  in  the  most 
solemn  fashion,  and  to  a  tender  conscience  like  that  of  Huss  it  was 
worse  than  death.  From  this  dilemma  there  was  no  escape.  On 
the  one  hand  lay  the  legal  system,  contrived  with  Satanic  ingenuity 
and  unalterable ;  on  the  other  lay  the  purity  of  character  Avhich 
led  Huss  to  reject  without  hesitation  all  the  specious  subterfuges 
suggested  to  beguile  him.f 

For  a  month  the  struggle  continued,  and  no  human  soul  ever 
bore  itself  with  loftier  fortitude  or  sweeter  or  humbler  charity.  He 
asked  for  a  confessor,  and  intimated  that  he  would  prefer  Stephen 
Palecz,  the  enemy  who  had  hounded  him  to  the  death.  Palecz 
came  and  heard  his  confession,  and  then  urged  him  to  abjure,  say- 
ing that  he  ought  not  to  mind  the  humiliation.  "  The  humiliation 
of  condemnation  and  burning  is  greater,"  rephed  Huss,  "  how  then 
can  I  fear  humiliation  ?  But  advise  mc :  what  would  you  do  if 
you  knew  for  certain  that  you  did  not  hold  the  errors  imputed  to 
you?  Would  you  abjure?"  Palecz  burst  into  tears  and  could 
only  stammer,  "  It  is  difficult."  He  wept  again  freely  when  Huss 
begged  his  pardon  for  harsh  words  used  in  the  heat  of  strife,  and 
especially  for  calling  him  a  falsifier.     Another  confessor  was  sent 


*  Von  der  Ilardt  IV.  432-33. 

t  Huss  was  by  no  means  the  first  to  sufier  from  this  technical  necessity  of  con- 
fession in  abjuring.  In  the  case  of  the  English  Templars,  William  de  la  More, 
Preceptor  of  England,  and  Humbert  Blanc,  Preceptor  of  Afjuitaine,  refused  to 
al)jure  because  they  would  not  confess  to  heresies  which  they  had  never  enter- 
tained.—Wilkins,  Concil.  ir.  890,  893. 


488  BOHEMIA. 

to  him,  who  listened  to  him  kindly  and  gave  him  absolution  with- 
out insisting  on  preliminary  abjuration,  which  was  a  most  irregular 
concession — indeed,  almost  incredible.  Many  others  were  allowed 
to  visit  him  in  the  hope  of  persuading  him  to  confess  and  recant. 
One  learned  doctor  urged  his  submission,  saying,  "  If  the  council 
told  me  I  had  but  one  eye,  I  would  confess  it  to  be  so,  though  I 
know  I  have  two,"  but  Huss  was  impervious  to  such  example.  An 
Englishman  adduced  the  precedent  of  the  English  doctors  who  had, 
without  exception,  abjured  the  heresies  of  Wickliff  when  required 
to  do  so ;  but  when  liuss  offered  to  swear  that  he  had  never  held 
or  taught  the  heresies  imputed  to  him,  and  that  he  would  never 
hold  or  teach  them,  his  baffled  advisers  withdrew.* 

The  most  formidable  effort,  however,  was  of  an  official  charac- 
ter. At  the  final  hearing  of  June  8,  Cardinal  Zabarella  had  prom- 
ised him  that  a  recantation  in  a  form  strictly  limited  would  be 
submitted  to  him,  and  the  promise  was  fulfilled  in  a  paper  skilfully 
drawn  up,  so  as  to  satisfy  his  scruples.  It  represented  him  as 
protesting  anew  that  much  had  been  imputed  to  him  which  be 
had  never  beheved,  but  that  nevertheless  he  submitted  himself  in 
everything  to  the  correction  and  orders  of  the  council  in  abjuring, 
revoking,  and  retracting,  and  in  accepting  whatever  merciful  pen- 
ance the  council  miglit  prescribe  for  his  salvation.  Carefully  as 
this  was  phrased  to  elude  the  difficulty,  Huss  rejected  it  without 
hesitation.  In  some  matters,  he  said,  he  would  be  denying  the 
truth,  in  others  he  would  be  perjuring  himself.  It  were  better  to 
die  than  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Lord  in  the  effort  to  escape 
momentary  suffering.  Then  one  of  the  fathers  of  the  council — 
supposed  to  be  the  Cardinal  of  Ostia,  the  highest  in  rajik  of  the 
Sacred  CoUege — addressed  him  as  his  "  dearest  and  most  cherished 
brother,"  with  the  most  honeyed  persuasiveness,  begging  him  not 
to  confide  too  absolutely  in  his  own  judgment.  In  making  the 
abjuration  it  will  not  be  he  that  condemns  truth,  but  the  council ; 
as  for  perjury,  if  perjury  there  be,  it  will  fall  on  the  heads  of  those 
who  exact  it.  Yet  Huss  was  not  to  be  enticed  with  such  allure- 
ments; he  could  not  quiet  his  conscience  with  casuistry  such  as 
this,  and  he  deliberately  chose  death.  In  daily  expectation  of  the 
dreadful  sentence,  he  quietly  put  his  simple  affairs  in  order.    Peter 


*  Epiatt.  XXX.,  xxxi.,  xxxii.  (Monument.  I,  67-8). — Von  der  Hardt  IV.  342-5. 


OFFICIAL    EFFORTS    TO    SAVE    HUSS.  489 

IVIladenowic,  the  notary,  had  rendered  him  zealous  service  and 
should  be  paid  out  of  his  sixty  grossi.  His  little  debts  were  to  be 
settled,  and  his  books,  apparently  his  only  other  property,  were  to 
be  distributed.  Kind  remembrances  were  sent  to  his  numerous 
friends,  and  they  were  told  if  they  had  learned  any  good  of  him 
to  hold  fast  to  it ;  if  they  had  seen  in  him  aught  reprehensible  to 
cast  it  aside.  It  was  not  that  he  was  insensible,  for  he  describes 
in  moving  terms  the  mental  conflicts  and  agony  which  he  endured 
in  his  hopeless  prison,  expecting  each  day  to  be  led  forth  to  an 
agonizing  death,  but  the  spirit  rose  superior  to  the  flesh  and 
remained  victor  in  the  struggle.  Solicitous  to  retain  the  good 
opinion  of  his  disciples,  he  managed  to  transmit  to  them,  on  June 
18,  a  copy  of  the  articles  proved  against  him,  together  with  a  re- 
port of  what  his  defence  had  been.  Of  those  drawn  fi'om  his 
writings  he  retracted  none,  although  many  he  declared  to  be  false 
and  garbled.  Those  alleged  against  him  by  witnesses  he  mostly 
asserted  to  be  lies,  and  he  pathetically  concluded,  "  It  only  remains 
for  me  to  abjure  and  revoke  and  undergo  fearful  penance  or  to 
burn.  May  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  grant  me  the  spirit 
of  wisdom  and  fortitude  to  persevere  to  the  end  and  to  escape  the 
snares  of  Satan  !''* 

In  hope  of  his  weakening,  the  end  was  postponed  until  the 
approaching  departure  of  Sigismund  rendered  further  delay  im- 
possible. Yet  effort  was  not  abandoned  tiU  the  last.  On  July  1 
a  deputation  of  prelates  endeavored  to  persuade  him  that  he  could 
reasonably  recant,  but  he  handed  them  a  written  confession  call- 
ing God  to  witness  that  he  had  never  taught  many  of  the  articles; 
as  for  the  rest,  if  there  were  error  in  tliem  he  detested  it,  but  he 
could  not  abjure  any  of  them.  Puzzled  by  his  unexpected  tenacity 
of  purpose,  and  earnestly  desirous  of  avoiding  the  catastrophe,  a 
final  and  unprecedented  concession  w^as  agreed  upon.  On  July  5 
Zabarella  and  Peter  d'Ailly  sent  for  him  and  offered  to  let  him 
deny  the  heresies  proved  by  witnesses  if  he  would  abjure  those 
extracted  from  his  books.  This  was,  in  fact,  an  abandonment  of 
all  inquisitorial  precedent,  but  Huss  had  persistently  declared  that 


*  Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky,  p.  309). — Epistt.  xxvii.,  xxix.,  xxx.,  xxxviii. 
xxxix.,  xl.,  xli.  (Monument.  I.  63-66,  67,  70).— Von  der  Hardt  IV.  329-30.— 
Palacky,  pp.  225-34. 


490  BOHEMIA. 

most  of  the  latter  were  fraudulently  drawn,  so  as  to  attribute  to 
him  errors  which  he  had  never  held,  and  he  was  immovable.  As 
a  last  resource,  later  in  the  same  day,  Sigismund  sent  his  friends 
John  of  Chlum  and  Wenceslas  of  Duba,  with  four  bishops,  to  ask 
him  whether  he  would  persevere  or  recant,  l)ut  his  answer  was  as 
firm  as  ever.  To  the  friendly  adjuration  of  John  of  Chlum  he 
replied  with  tears  that  he  would  willingly  revoke  anything  in 
which  he  could  be  proved  to  have  erred.  The  bishops  pronounced 
him  obstinate  in  error  and  left  him.* 

Thus  the  extraordinary  efforts  of  the  council  to  save  itself  and 
him  were  vain,  and  nothing  remained  but  the  inevitable  final  act 
of  the  tragedy.  The  next  day,  July  6,  saw  the  most  gorgeous 
auto  de  fe  on  record.  The  cathedral  of  Constance  was  crowded 
with  Sigismund  and  his  nobles,  the  great  officers  of  the  empire 
with  their  insignia,  the  prelates  in  their  splendid  robes.  While 
mass  was  sung,  Iluss,  as  an  excommunicate,  was  kept  waiting 
at  the  door ;  when  brought  in  he  was  placed  on  an  elevated  bench 
by  a  table  on  which  stood  a  coffer  containing  priestly  vestments. 
After  some  preliminaries,  including  a  sermon  by  the  Bishop  of 
Lodi,  in  which  he  assured  Sigismund  that  the  events  of  that  day 
would  confer  on  him  immortal  glory,  the  articles  of  which  Huss 
was  convicted  were  recited.  In  vain  he  protested  that  he  believed 
in  transubstantiation  and  in  the  validity  of  the  sacrament  in  pol- 
luted hands.  He  was  ordered  to  hold  his  tongue,  and  on  his  per- 
sisting the  beadles  were  told  to  silence  him,  but  in  spite  of  this  he 
continued  to  utter  protests.  The  sentence  was  then  read  in  the 
name  of  the  council,  condemning  him  both  for  his  written  errors 
and  those  which  had  been  proved  by  witnesses.  He  was  declared 
a  pertinacious  and  incorrigible  heretic  who  did  not  desire  to  return 
to  the  Church ;  his  books  were  ordered  to  be  burned,  and  himself 
to  be  degraded  from  the  priesthood  and  abandoned  to  the  secular 


*  Mladenowic  Relatio  (Palacky,  pp.  316-17).— Von  der  Hard*^^  IV.  345-6,  386. 
— Palacky,  p.  560. 

To  appreciate  properly  the  extent  of  the  concessions  offered  to  Huss  it  is 
necessary  to  bear  in  mind  the  elaborately  careful  formulas  of  abjuration  which 
the  inquisitors  were  accustomed  to  use,  so  as  to  allow  no  loophole  for  the  avoid- 
ance of  the  penalties  of  relapse,  and  to  force  the  penitent  to  betray  his  fellow- 
heretics.  See  Modus  Procedendi  (Martene  Thesaur.  V.  1800-1). — Lib.  Sententt. 
Inq.  Tolosan.  p.  215. — Bern.  Guidon.  Practica  pp.  92-3  (lid.  Douais). 


THE   CATASTROPHE.  491 

court.  Seven  bishops  arrayed  him  in  priestly  garb  and  warned 
him  to  recant  while  yet  there  was  time.  He  turned  to  the  crowd, 
and  with  broken  voice  declared  that  he  could  not  confess  the 
errors  which  he  had  never  entertained,  lest  he  should  lie  to  God, 
when  the  bishops  interrupted  him,  crying  that  they  had  waited 
long  enough,  for  he  was  obstinate  in  his  heresy.  He  was  degraded 
in  the  usual  manner,  stripped  of  his  sacerdotal  vestments,  his 
fingers  scraped ;  but  when  the  tonsure  was  to  be  disposed  of  an 
absurd  quarrel  arose  among  the  bishops  as  to  whether  the  head 
should  be  shaved  with  a  razor  or  the  tonsure  be  destroyed  with 
scissors.  Scissors  won  the  day,  and  a  cross  was  cut  in  his  hair. 
Then  on  his  head  was  placed  a  conical  paper  cap,  a  cubit  in  height, 
adorned  with  painted  devils  and  the  inscription,  "  This  is  the  here- 
siarch."  In  accordance  with  the  universal  custom  no  proceed- 
ings by  the  secular  authorities  were  regarded  as  necessary.  As 
soon  as  the  ecclesiastical  court  had  pronounced  him  a  heretic  and 
handed  him  over,  the  laws  against  heresy  operated  of  themselves. 
Sigismund,  it  is  true,  might  have  delayed  the  execution  for  six 
days,  but  this  would  have  been  so  unusual  as  to  have  excited  most 
unfavorable  comment.  There  had  already  been  afforded  ample 
opportunity  for  resipiscence,  and  the  convict  could  always  still 
recant  up  to  the  lighting  of  the  fagots.  Nothing  could  reason- 
ably be  hoped  from  further  postponement,  and  Sigismund's  ap- 
proaching departure  counselled  promptitude.  He  therefore  briefly 
ordered  the  Palsgrave  Louis  to  take  charge  of  the  culprit  and  to 
do  to  him  as  to  a  heretic.  Louis  called  to  Hans  Hazen,  the  im- 
perial vogt  of  Constance,  "  Vogt,  take  him  as  judged  of  both  of 
us  and  burn  him  as  a  heretic."  Then  he  was  led  forth,  and  the 
council  calmly  turned  to  other  business,  unconscious  that  it  had 
performed  the  most  momentous  act  of  the  century.* 

The  place  of  execution  was  a  meadow  near  the  river,  to  which  he 
was  conducted  by  two  thousand  armed  men,  with  Palsgrave  Louis 


-  IMiadenowic  Rdatio  (Palacky,  pp.  318-21).— "Von  der  Hardt  IV.  389-96, 
432-40.— Harduin.  Ylll.  408-10.— Richentals  Chronik  p.  80.— Richental  says 
that  Huss  was  delivered  to  the  secular  arm  with  the  customary  adjuration  for 
mercy,  but  the  text  of  the  sentence  as  printed  by  Von  der  Ilardt  contains  no  such 
clause.  It  may  well  have  been  omitted  at  Sigismund's  request,  as  lie  had  already 
incurred  sufficient  obloquy,  but  the  same  omission  is  noticeable  in  the  sentence 
of  Jerome  of  Prague  (Von  der  Hardt  IV.  771). 


492  BOHEMIA. 

at  their  head,  and  a  vast  crowd,  including  many  nobles,  prelates, 
and  cardinals.  The  route  followed  was  circuitous,  in  order  that 
he  might  be  carried  past  the  episcopal  palace,  in  front  of  which 
his  books  were  burning,  whereat  he  smiled.  Pity  from  man  there 
was  none  to  look  for,  but  he  sought  comfort  on  high,  repeating  to 
himself, "  Christ  Jesus,  Son  of  the  living  God,  have  mercy  upon  me!" 
and  when  he  came  in  sight  of  the  stake  he  fell  on  his  knees  and 
prayed.  He  was  asked  if  he  wished  to  confess,  and  said  that  he 
would  gladly  do  so  if  there  were  space.  A  wide  circle  was  formed, 
andUlrich  Schorand,  who,  according  to  custom,  had  been  provi- 
dently empowered  to  take  advantage  of  any  final  weakening, 
came  forward,  saying,  "  Dear  sir  and  master,  if  you  will  recant 
your  unbelief  of  heresy,  for  which  you  must  suffer,  I  will  willingly 
hear  your  confession ;  but  if  you  will  not,  you  know  right  well, 
that,  according  to  canon  law,  no  one  can  administer  the  sacra- 
ment to  a  heretic."  To  this  IIuss  answered,  "  It  is  not  necessary: 
I  am  no  mortal  sinner."  His  paper  crown  fell  off  and  he  smiled 
as  his  guards  replaced  it.  He  desired  to  take  leave  of  his  keepers, 
and  when  they  were  brought  to  him  he  thanked  them  for  their 
kindness,  saying  that  they  tad  been  to  him  rather  brothers  than 
jailers.  Then  he  commenced  to  address  the  crowd  in  German, 
telling  them  that  he  suffered  for  errors  which  he  did  not  hold, 
sworn  to  by  perjured  witnesses  ;  but  this  could  not  be  permitted, 
and  he  was  cut  short,  "When  bound  to  the  stake  and  two  cart- 
loads of  fagots  and  straw  were  piled  up  around  him  the  pals- 
grave and  vogt  for  the  last  time  adjured  him  to  abjure.  Even  yet 
he  could  have  saved  himself,  but  he  only  repeated  that  he  had 
been  convicted  by  false  witnesses  of  errors  never  entertained  by 
him.  They  clapped  their  hands  and  then  withdrew,  and  the  exe- 
cutioners applied  the  fire.  Twice  Huss  was  heard  to  exclaim, 
"•  Christ  Jesus,  Son  of  the  living  God,  have  mercy  upon  me !"  then 
a  wind  springing  up  and  blowing  the  flames  and  smoke  into  his 
face  checked  further  utterance,  but  his  head  was  seen  to  shake 
and  his  lips  to  move  while  one  might  twice  or  thrice  recite  a  pa- 
ternoster. The  tragedy  was  over ;  the  sorely-tried  soul  had  escaped 
from  its  tormentors,  and  the  bitterest  enemies  of  the  refonner 
could  not  refuse  to  him  tlie  praise  that  no  philosopher  of  old  had 
faced  death  with  more  composure  than  he  had  shown  in  his  dread- 
ful extremity.    No  faltering  of  the  voice  had  betrayed  an  internal 


SATISFACTION    OF    THE    COUNCIL.  493 

struggle.  Palsgrave  Louis,  seeing  Huss's  mantle  on  the  arm  of 
one  of  the  executioners,  ordered  it  thrown  into  the  flames  lest  it 
should  be  reverenced  as  a  relic,  and  promised  the  man  to  compen- 
sate him.  With  the  same  view  the  body  was  carefully  reduced 
to  ashes  and  thrown  into  the  Rhine,  and  even  the  earth  around 
the  stake  was  dug  up  and  carted  off ;  yet  the  Bohemians  long 
hovered  around  the  spot  and  carried  home  fragments  of  the  neigh- 
boring clay,  which  they  reverenced  as  relics  of  their  martj^r.  The 
next  day  thanks  were  returned  to  God,  in  a  solemn  procession  in 
which  figured  Sigismund  and  his  queen,  the  princes  and  nobles, 
nineteen  cardinals,  two  patriarchs,  seventy-seven  bishops,  and  all 
the  clergy  of  the  council.  A  few  days  later  Sigismund,  who  had 
delayed  his  departure  for  Spain  to  see  the  matter  concluded,  left 
Constance,  feeling  that  his  work  was  done.* 

The  long-continued  teaching  of  the  Church,  that  persistent  her- 
es}'  was  the  one  crime  for  which  there  could  be  no  pardon  or  ex- 
cuse, seemed  to  deprive  even  the  wisest  and  purest  of  all  power  of 
reasoning  where  it  was  concerned.  There  was  no  hesitation  in 
admitting  that  the  pestilent  heresy  of  the  Hussites  was  caused  by 
the  simoniacal  corruptions  of  the  Roman  curia,  whereby  many 
Christian  souls  were  led  to  eternal  perdition,  and  that  it  could  not 
be  eradicated  until  a  thorough  reformation  was  effected.  Yet  in 
place  of  drawing  from  this  the  necessary  deduction,  the  feeling  of 
the  council  is  reflected  by  its  historian  in  the  blasphemous  represen- 
tation of  Christ  as  recording  with  satisfaction  the  hideous  details 
of  the  execution,  and  as  saying  that  the  wicked  soul  of  the  heretic 
commenced  in  temporal  flame  the  torment  which  it  would  suffer 
through  eternity  in  hell.  The  trial,  in  fact,  had  been  conducted 
in  accordance  with  the  universally  received  practice  in  such  cases, 
the  only  exceptions  being  in  favor  of  the  accused.  If  the  result 
was  inevitable,  it  was  the  fault  of  the  system  and  not  of  the 
judges,  and  their  consciences  might  well  feel  satisfied.! 


*  Richentals  Chronik  pp.  80-2. — Von  der  Hardt  IV.  445-8. — Mladenowic  Re- 
latio  (Palacky,  pp.  321-4). — ^n.  Sj'lvii  Hist.  Bohcm.  c.  36. — Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar. 
Bell.  Hussit.  (Ludewig  VI.  135-6). — AndresB  Ratispon.  Chron.  (Pez  Thes.  Anec- 
dot.  IV.  III.  627). 

t  P.  d'Ailly  (Theod.  a  Niem)  de  Necess.  Reform,  c.  28,  29  (Von  der  Hardt  I. 
VI.  30G-9).— Theod.  Vrie  Hist.  Concil.  Constant.  Lib.  vi.  Dist.  11  ;  Lib.  vn.  Dist.  3 
(Ibid.  I.  170-1,  181-2).     It  is  simply  a  lack  of  familiarity  with  tlie  ecclesiastical 


494  BOHEMIA. 

Great  was  the  disgust  of  tlie  orthodox  when  they  learned  that 
this  pious  view  of  the  matter  was  not  entertained  in  Prague,  and 
it  required  the  most  positive  assurances  of  eye-witnesses  to  make 
them  believe  the  incredible  fact  that,  from  king  to  peasant  in  Bo- 
hemia, there  was  j)ractical  unanimity  in  the  belief  that  he  who 
had  been  condemned  and  executed  as  a  heretic  was  a  martyr; 
that  the  popular  songs  sung  in  the  streets  represented  him  as  one 
who  had  shed  his  blood  for  Christ,  and  that  he  was  inserted  in 
the  calendar  of  saints,  with  his  feast  on  July  6,  the  day  of  his  ex- 
ecution. The  good  fathers,  however,  were  not  long  in  finding, 
from  indubitable  evidence,  that  they  had  made  a  grave  mistake 
as  to  the  Bohemian  temper,  and  that  they  had  only  succeeded  in 
inflaming  the  disease  which  they  had  sought  to  eradicate.  As 
soon  as  the  defiance  excited  in  Bohemia  could  be  learned  in  Con- 
stance, the  council  made  haste  to  write,  July  26,  to  the  authorities 
there,  protesting  that  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague  had  been  treated 
with  all  tenderness,  that  the  persistent  heresy  of  the  former  had 
forced  his  delivery  to  the  secular  court  for  judgment,  and  that  all 
similar  heretics  would  be  treated  in  the  same  manner.  The  Bohe- 
mians were  exhorted  to  justify,  by  similar  persecution,  the  good 
opinion  of  their  orthodoxy  which  the  council  had  formed  from  the 
report  of  the  Bishop  of  Litomysl,  whose  popular  name  of  Iron 
John  sufficiently  indicates  his  inflexibility.  This  good  opinion 
was  not  sustained  when  a  protest  was  received  from  the  barons 
of  Bohemia  and  Moravia,  hastily  drawn  up  as  soon  as  the  news 
of  the  execution  had  reached  them — a  protest  which  the  council 
promptly  ordered  to  be  burned.  Its  letter  of  July  26  led  to  the 
convocation  of  a  national  assembly,  in  which  an  address  was 
framed  and  received  the  signatures  of  nearly  five  hundred  barons, 
knights,  and  gentlemen.  In  this  they  asserted  their  behef  in 
Huss's  purity  and  orthodoxy ;  that  he  had  unjustly  been  put  to 
death  without  confession  or  lawful  conviction  ;  that  Jerome  they 
supposed  had  shared  the  same  fate ;  that  the  defamation  of  the 
kingdom  for  heresy  was  the  work  of  liars,  and  that  any  one  who 

jurisprudence  of  the  Middle  Ages  that  has  led  historians  to  regard  the  cases  of 
Huss  and  Jerome  as  exceptional.  Even  so  well  informed  an  authority  as  Lech- 
ler  does  not  hesitate  to  say  "  Hussens  Verbrennung  war,  mit  dem  Massstab  des 
damaligen  Rechts  gemesseu,  ein  warer  Justizmord "  (Herzog's  Real-Encyklop. 
VI.  392). 


JEROME    OF    PRAGUE.  495 

asserted  it,  saving  Sigismund,  lied  in  his  throat,  was  the  vilest  of 
traitors  and  the  worst  of  heretics,  and  as  such,  they  would  prose- 
cute him  before  the  future  pope.  A  more  dangerous  symptom  of 
rebellion  was  a  pledge  signed  by  the  magnates,  agreeing  that  all 
]>riests  should  be  allowed  to  preach  freely  the  truths  of  Scripture, 
that  no  bishop  should  be  permitted  to  interfere  with  them  unless 
they  taught  errors,  and  that  no  excommunications  or  interdicts 
from  abroad  should  be  received  or  observed.* 

This  was  firing  at  long  range  with  no  result  but  mutual  exac- 
erbation, and  it  was  probably  the  stimulus  of  Bohemian  disaffec- 
tion which  led  the  council  about  this  time  to  act  vigorously  in  the 
case  of  Jerome  of  Prague,  whom  the  Bohemian  nobles  had  erro- 
neously believed  to  have  shared  the  fate  of  Huss. 

Jerome  of  Prague  stands  before  us  as  one  of  those  meteoric 
natures  which  would  be  dismissed  by  the  student  as  half  mythical, 
if  the  substantial  facts  which  are  on  record  did  not  fix  the  details 
of  his  career  with  an  exactness  leaving  no  room  for  doubt.  Born 
at  Prague,  his  early  training  was  received  at  a  time  when  men's 
minds  were  beginning  to  waver  in  the  confusion  of  the  Great 
Schism,  and  under  the  impulsion  of  the  Wickliffite  writings.  About 
the  year  1400  he  was  brought  under  the  influence  of  Huss,  and 
thereafter  he  continued  to  be  the  steadfast  adherent  and  supporter 
of  the  great  protestant  against  the  corruptions  of  the  Church. 
Already,  at  Paris,  Cologne,  Heidelberg,  and  Cracow — at  all  of 
which  he  had  been  decorated  with  the  honors  of  the  universities — 
he  had  disturbed  the  philosophic  calm  of  the  schools  with  his  sub- 
tleties on  the  theory  of  universals  ;  at  Paris,  indeed,  the  disturb- 
ance had  gone  so  far  that  John  Gerson,  the  chancellor  of  the  uni- 
versity, had  driven  him  forth,  perhaps  retaining  a  grudge  which 
explains  his  zeal  in  the  prosecution  of  his  old  antagonist.  His 
restless  spirit  left  scarce  a  region  of  the  known  civilized  world 
un visited.     At  Oxford,  attracted  by  the  reputation  of  WickUff,  he 


*  Loserth,  Huss  u.  Wiclif  p.  156.— Epistt.  Ixi.,  Ixii.,  Ixiv.  (Monument.  I.  77-9, 
81).— Yon  der  Hardt  IV.  489-90,  494-7.— Palacky  Documenta,  pp.  580-4,593-4. 
— Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell.  Ilussit.  (Ludewig  VI.  13G). 

The  temper  of  the  Bohemians  had  been  excited,  a  few  days  before  the  burn- 
ing of  Huss,  by  the  news  tliat  in  Olmiitz  a  student  of  Prague  named  John,  de- 
scribed as  a  zealous  follower  of  God,  had  been,  within  the  short  space  of  twelve 
hours,  arrested,  tortured,  convicted,  and  burned. — Palacky  Documenta,  p.  561. 


490  B  O  n  E  M  1  A. 

had  copied  with  his  own  hand  the  Dialogus  and  the  Trialogus, 
and  had  carried  tliose  outpourings  of  revolt  to  Prague,  where  they 
added  fresh  fuel  to  the  rapidly  rising  fires  of  Bohemian  insubordi- 
nation. On  a  second  visit  he  had  been  seized  as  a  heretic,  and  had 
escaped  through  the  intervention  of  the  University  of  Prague.  In 
Palestine  he  had  trodden  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Saviour  and  had 
bent  in  reverence  at  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  In  Lithuania  he  had 
souffht  to  convert  the  heathen.  In  Russia  he  had  endeavored  to 
win  over  the  schismatic  Greek.  In  Poland  and  Hungary  he  had 
scattered  the  doctrines  of  Wickliff  and  Huss.  Driven  out  of  Hun- 
gary, in  1410,  he  was  arrested  and  thrown  m  prison  in  Vienna,  by 
the  papal  inquisitor  and  episcopal  official,  for  teaching  Hussitism 
and  infecting  with  it  the  university  of  that  city.  His  trial  was 
commenced  and  a  day  was  set  for  its  hearing,  prior  to  which  he 
was  allowed  his  liberty  on  his  oath  not  to  leave  the  city,  under 
pain  of  excommunication.  Claiming  that  an  extorted  oath  was 
of  no  force,  he  escaped,  and  from  Olmiitz  wrote  a  free-and-easy 
letter  to  the  Bisliop  of  Passau,  suggesting  that  the  prosecutors 
and  witnesses  may  be  sent  to  Prague,  where  the  trial  can  be  fin- 
ished. The  excommunication,  indeed,  foUoAved  him  to  Prague, 
but  in  the  tumultuous  condition  of  Bohemia  it  gave  him  no  trouble, 
though  the  University  of  Yienna  wrote  to  the  University  of 
Prague  that  by  remaining  more  than  a  year  under  the  excommu- 
nication he  had  incurred  the  guilt  of  heresy,  for  which  he  ought 
to  be  condemned ;  and  meanw^hile  the  converts  whom  he  had 
made  in  Vienna  continued  to  give  occupation  to  the  Inquisition, 
and  the  university  which  interfered  in  their  behalf  incurred  the 
suspicion  of  heresy.  In  the  stirring  events  which  followed,  his 
restless  and  aggressive  spirit  would  not  allow  him  to  be  inactive, 
and  the  popular  impression  of  his  reckless  audacity  is  shown  in 
the  story  of  his  hanging  the  papal  bulls  of  indulgence  around  the 
neck  of  a  strumpet  and  carrying  her  to  the  place  where  they  were 
to  be  burned.  In  1413  he  again  visited  Poland,  where  in  a  short 
time  he  succeeded  in  causing  an  unprecedented  excitement,  and 
was  speedily  sent  back  to  Prague.  His  whole  life  had  been  spent 
in  intellectual  digladiation,  from  his  youthful  philosophic  contests 
to  the  maturer  struggles  with  the  overwhelming  forces  of  the 
hierarchy.  A  layman,  not  in  holy  orders  and  unfurnished  with 
priestly  gown  and  tonsure,  he  had  preached  to  admiring  crowds 


JEROME    OF    PRAGUE.  497 

of  Majjars,  Poles,  and  Czechs ;  nor  was  he  wholly  unskilled  in 
the  use  of  the  arms  of  the  flesh.  On  his  trial  he  admitted  that 
he  had  once  been  drawn  into  a  quarrel  with  some  monks  in  a 
monastery,  when  two  of  them  attacked  him  with  swords,  and  he 
defended  himself  successfully  with  a  weapon  hastily  snatched 
from  the  hand  of  a  bystander.  His  enemies,  indeed,  accused  him 
of  having,  on  another  occasion,  drawn  a  dagger  on  a  Dominican 
friar,  and  of  having  been  only  prevented  by  force  from  stabbing 
him  to  the  death.  All  of  his  contemporaries  bear  testimony  to 
his  wonderful  powers.  His  commanding  presence,  his  glittering 
eyes,  his  sable  hair  and  flowing  beard,  his  deep  and  impressive 
voice,  his  persuasive  accents,  enabled  him  to  throw  his  influence 
over  all  with  whom  he  came  in  contact ;  while  his  miraculous 
stores  of  learning,  his  unmatched  readiness,  and  the  subtlety  of 
his  intellect,  rendered  him  an  enemy  of  the  Church  only  one  de- 
gree less  dangerous  than  the  steadfast  and  irreproachable  Huss.* 
Jerome  had  watched  from  Prague  the  fate  of  his  friend  with 
daily  increasing  anxiety,  and  when  the  rupture  between  pope  and 
council  seemed  to  promise  immunity  for  the  opponents  of  hier- 
archical corruption  he  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  aid  in  his 
rescue,  and  to  assist  in  what  appeared  to  be  the  approaching  over- 
throw of  the  evils  which  he  had  so  long  combated.  April  4, 1415, 
he  came  secretly  to  Constance,  but  speedily  found  how  groundless 
were  his  hopes  and  how  dangerous  was  the  atmosphere  of  the 
place.  Christann  of  Prachaticz,  one  of  Huss's  chief  disciples,  had 
recently  ventured  to  visit  Constance,  had  been  arrested,  and  arti- 
cles of  accusation  had  been  presented  against  him,  when  on  the 
intervention  of  the  Bohemian  ambassadors  he  had  been  liberated 
under  oath  to  present  himself  when  summoned — an  oath  which 
he  had  forfeited  by  promptly  escaping  to  Bohemia.  Jerome  con- 
tented himself  with  posting  a  notice  on  the  walls  affirming  the 
orthodoxy  of  Huss;  he  withdrew  at  once  to  Ueberlingen  and 
asked  for  a  safe-conduct.  The  response  was  ambiguous,  but,  like 
a  moth  hovering  around  the  fatal  candle-flame,  he  returned  to 
Constance,  where,  April  7,  he  affixed  another  notice  on  the  church 


•  Von  der  Hardt  IV.  634-01,  756.— Palacky  Documenta,  pp.  63,  336-7,  408-9, 
417-20,  506,  572.— Loscrtli,  Mittlieilungon  dcs  Vcreins  fiir  Gcsch.  der  Dcutschen 
in  Bohmen,  1885,  pp.  108-9. — Schrodl,  Passavia  Sacra,  pp.  284-5. 
II.— 32 


4;)6  BOHEMIA. 

doors  addressed  to  Sigismund  and  the  council.  It  stated  that  he 
had  come  of  his  own  free  will  to  answer  all  accusations  of  heresy, 
and  if  convicted  he  was  ready  to  endure  the  penalty,  but  he  asked 
a  safe-conduct  in  coming  and  going,  and  if  incarcerated  or  treated 
with  violence  during  his  stay  the  council  would  be  committing  in- 
justice of  which  he  could  not  suspect  so  many  learned  and  wise 
men.  This  senseless  bravado  is  only  to  be  explained  by  his  er- 
ratic temperament,  and  it  did  not  prevent  him  from  taking  pre- 
cautions as  to  his  safety.  He  suddenly  changed  his  mind,  and  on 
April  9,  after  obtaining  from  the  Bohemians  at  Constance  testi- 
monial letters,  he  escaped  from  the  city,  none  too  soon,  for  the 
officials  were  in  search  of  his  lodgings,  which  they  discovered  a 
few  days  after  at  the  Gutjar,  in  St.  Paul  Street,  where  in  his 
haste  he  had  left  behind  him  the  significant  memento  of  a  sword. 
This  time  he  no  longer  trifled  with  fate,  but  travelled  rapidly  tow- 
ards Bohemia.  At  Hirsau,  however,  his  impetuous  temper  led 
him  into  a  discussion  in  which  he  stigmatized  the  council  as  a 
synagogue  of  Satan.  He  was  seized  April  24,  and  the  papers 
found  upon  him  betrayed  him.  John  of  Bavaria  threw  him  into 
the  castle  of  Sulzbach,  notified  the  council  of  his  capture,  and 
in  obedience  to  its  commands  he  was  forthwith  carried  thither 
in  chains.* 

Meanwhile  the  council  had  responded  to  his  appeal  by  pub- 
lishing, April  IS,  a  formal  inquisitorial  citation  summoning  him, 
as  a  suspected  and  defamed  heretic,  the  suppression  of  whom  was 
its  chief  duty,  to  appear  for  trial  within  fifteen  days,  in  default  of 
which  he  would  be  proceeded  against  in  contumacy.  A  safe-con- 
duct was  offered  him,  but  it  was  expressly  declared  subject  to  the 
exigencies  of  the  faith.  Unaware  of  his  capture,  on  May  2  a  new 
citation  was  published  and  his  trial  as  contumacious  was  ordered, 
and  this  was  repeated  on  the  4th.  On  May  24  his  captors  brought 
him  to  the  city  loaded  with  chains,  and  took  him  to  the  Francis- 
can convent,  where  a  tumultuous  congregation  of  the  council 
greeted  his  arrival.  Here  Gerson  gratified  his  rancor  against  his 
old  opponent,  loudly  berating  him  for  having  taught  falsely  at 
Paris,  Heidelberg,  and  Cologne,  and  the  rectors  of  the  two  latter 


*  Von  der  Harclt  IV.  103-5,  1345i«. — Palackj^  Documenta,  p.  541-2. — Richen- 
tals  Crouik,  p.  78. — Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell.  Hussit.  ann.  1415  (Ludewig  VI,  132). 


JEROME    OF    PRAGUE.  499 

universities  corroborated  the  accusations.  His  replies  were  sharp 
and  ready,  but  were  drowned  in  the  roar  of  fresh  charges,  min- 
gled with  shouts  of  "  Burn  him !  Burn  him !"  Thence  he  was  car- 
ried to  a  dungeon  in  the  Cemetery  of  St.  Paul,  where  he  was 
chained  hand  and  foot  to  a  bench  too  high  for  him  to  sit  on,  and 
for  two  days  he  was  fed  on  bread  and  water,  until  his  friends  as- 
certained his  place  of  imprisonment  and  made  interest  with  the 
jailer  to  give  him  better  food.  He  soon  fell  dangerously  sick 
and  asked  for  a  confessor,  after  which  he  was  less  rigorously  fet- 
tered, but  he  never  left  the  prison  except  for  audience  and  execu- 
tion.* 

Stephen  Palecz,  Michael  de  Causis,  and  the  rest  were  ready 
with  their  accusations,  nor  could  there  be  difficulty  in  accumulat- 
ing a  mass  of  testimony  sufficient  to  convict  twenty  such  men  as 
Jerome.  His  trial  proceeded  according  to  the  regular  inquisitorial 
process,  the  commissioners  finding  him  much  more  learned  and 
skilful  than  Huss ;  but,  brilliant  as  was  his  defence  when  under 
examination,  his  nervous  temperament  unfitted  him  to  bear,  like 
Huss,  the  long-protracted  agony.  Sometimes  with  dialectic  sub- 
tlety he  turned  his  examiners  to  ridicule,  at  others  he  vacillated 
between  obduracy  and  submission.  Finally  he  weakened  under 
the  strain,  while  the  rebellious  attitude  of  the  Bohemians  doubt- 
less led  the  council  to  increase  the  pressm'e.  On  September  11  he 
was  brought  before  the  assembly,  where  he  read  a  long  and  elab- 
orate recantation.  Huss's  sweetness  of  temper,  he  said,  had  at- 
tracted him,  and  his  earnest  exposition  of  Scripture  truths  had  led 
him  to  believe  that  such  a  man  could  not  teach  heresy.  He  could 
not  believe  that  the  thirty  articles  condemned  by  the  council  were 
really  Huss's,  until  he  had  obtained  a  book  in  Huss's  own  hand- 
writing, and  on  comparing  them  article  by  article  he  found  them 
to  be  so.  He  therefore  spontaneously  and  of  free  Avill  condemned 
them,  some  of  them  as  heretical,  others  as  erroneous,  otliers  as 
scandalous.  He  also  condemned  the  forty-five  articles  of  Wick- 
liil ;  lie  submitted  himself  wholly  to  the  council,  he  condemned 
whatever  it  condemned,  and  he  asked  for  fitting  penance  to  be  as- 
signed him.  He  did  not  even  shrink  from  a  deeper  degradation. 
He  wrote  to  Bohemia  that  Huss  had  been  justly  executed,  that  he 


*  Von  der  Hardt  IV.  119, 134, 139, 142, 148-9,  216-18. 


500  BOHEMIA. 

had  become  convinced  of  his  friend's  errors  and  could  not  defend 
them.* 

This  was  not  a  strictly  formal  abjuration  such  as  was  custom- 
arily required  of  prisoners  of  the  Inquisition,  yet  it  might  have 
sufficed.  It  was  read  before  a  private  congregation  of  the  coun- 
cil, and  some  more  public  humiUation  was  needed.  At  the  next 
general  session,  therefore,  September  23,  Jerome  was  placed  in 
the  pulpit,  where  he  repeated  his  recantation,  with  an  explanation 
of  an  expression  in  it,  adding  a  recantation  of  his  theory  of  Uni- 
versals,  and  winding  up  by  a  solemn  oath  of  abjuration  in  which 
he  invoked  an  eternal  anathema  on  aU  who  wandered  from  the 
faith  and  on  himself  if  he  should  do  so.  He  had  been  told  that 
he  w^ould  not  be  allowed  to  return  to  Bohemia,  but  might  select 
some  Swabian  monastery  in  which  to  reside,  on  condition  that  he 
should  write  home,  over  his  hand  and  seal,  that  his  teaching  and 
that  of  Huss  were  false  and  not  to  be  followed.  This  he  promised 
to  do,  as,  indeed,  he  had  already  done,  but  he  was  remanded  to  his 
prison,  though  his  treatment  was  somewhat  less  harsh  than  before.f 

Had  the  council  been  wise,  it  would  have  treated  him  as  len- 
iently as  possible.  A  dishonored  apostate,  his  power  of  evil  was 
gone,  and  generosity  would  have  been  policy.  The  canons,  how- 
ever^ prescribed  harsh  prison  for  converted  heretics,  whose  con- 
version was  always  regarded  as  doubtful,  and  the  assembled  fa- 
thers were  too  bigoted  to  be  wise.  The  zealots  converted  the 
apostate  to  a  martyr,  whose  steadfast  constancy  redeemed  his 
temporary  weakness,  and  regained  for  him  the  forfeited  influence 
over  the  imagination  of  his  disciples. 

His  remorse  was  not  long  in  showing  itself.  Stephen  Palecz, 
Michael  de  Causis,  and  his  other  enemies  who  were  still  hovering 
around  his  prison,  soon  got  wind  of  his  self-accusation.     John 


*  Richentals  Cronik  p.  79. — Theod.Vrie  Hist.  Concil.  Constant.  Lib.  vr.  Dist. 
12.— Theod.  a  Niem  de  Vita  Joann.  PP.  XXHI.  Lib.  in.  c.  8.— Palacky  Docu- 
menta,  pp.  596-9. 

t  Von  der  Hardt  IV.  501-7.— Richentals  Cronik  p.  79.— In  the  final  official 
articles  drawn  up  against  Jerome  by  the  Promotor  HoBreticm  Pravitatis,  his  abso- 
lute refusal  to  write  to  Bohemia,  after  promising  to  do  so,  is  made  a  special 
point  of  accusation.  Yet  his  letter  to  that  effect,  of  September  12,  is  still  on  rec- 
ord, and  in  his  last  defiant  address  to  the  council  he  speaks  of  having  written 
it  under  fear  of  burning,  and  now  desires  to  withdraw  it  (V.  d.  Hardt  IV.  688,  761). 


JEROME    OF    PRAGUE.  501 

Gerson,  whose  hostility  seems  to  have  been  insatiable,  readily 
made  himself  their  mouthpiece,  and  in  a  learned  dissertation  on 
the  essentials  of  revocations  called  the  attention  of  the  council, 
October  29,  to  the  unsatisfactory  character  of  that  of  Jerome. 
Some  Carmelites,  apparently  arriving  from  Prague,  furnished  new 
accusations,  and  demands  were  made  that  he  be  required  to  an- 
swer  additional  articles.  Some  of  the  Cardinals,  ZabareUa,  Pierre 
d'Ailly,  Giordano  Orsini,  Antonio  da  Aquileia,  on  the  other  hand, 
labored  with  the  council  to  procure  his  liberation,  but  on  being 
actively  opposed  by  the  Germans  and  Bohemians  and  accused  of 
receiving  bribes  from  the  heretics  and  King  Wenceslas,  they  aban- 
doned the  hopeless  defence.  Accordingly^,  February  24,  1416,  a 
new  commission  was  appointed  to  hold  an  inquisition  on  him. 
The  whole  ground  was  gone  over  again  in  examining  him,  from 
the  Wickliffite  heresies  to  his  exciting  rebellion  in  Prague  and 
contumaciously  enduring  the  excommunication  incurred  in  Vienna. 
April  27  the  commissioners  made  their  report,  and  the  Promotor 
IlmreticcB  Pravitatis,  or  prosecutor  for  heresy,  accompanied  it 
with  a  long  indictment  enumerating  his  offences.  Jerome,  re- 
solved on  death,  had  recovered  his  audacity ;  he  not  only,  in  spite 
of  his  recantation,  denied  that  he  was  a  heretic,  but  complained 
of  unjust  imprisonment  and  claimed  to  be  indemnified  for  ex- 
penses and  damages.  His  marvellous  dialectical  dexterity  had 
evidently  nonplussed  the  slower  intellects  of  his  examiners,  who 
had  found  themselves  unable  to  cope  with  his  subtlety,  for  the 
council  was  asked,  in  conclusion,  to  diminish  the  diet  on  which  he 
was  described  as  feasting  gluttonously,  and  by  judicious  starvar 
tion,  the  proper  torment  of  heretics,  to  bring  him  to  submission. 
Moreover,  authority  was  asked  to  use  torture  and  to  force  him  to 
answer  definitely  yes  or  no  to  all  questions  as  to  his  belief.  If 
then  he  continues  contumaciously  to  deny  what  has  been  or  may 
be  proved  against  him,  he  is  to  be  handed  over  to  the  secular  arm, 
in  accordance  with  the  canon  law,  as  a  pertinacious  and  incorrigi- 
ble heretic.  Thus  with  Jerome,  as  with  IIuss,  the  invariable  prin- 
ciple of  inquisitorial  procedure  was  applied,  that  the  denial  of  heret- 
ical opinions  was  simply  an  evidence  and  an  aggravation  of  guilt.* 


*  Von  (ler  Hardt  III.  iv.  39 ;  IV.  634-91.— Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell.  Uussit 
(Ludewig  VI.  137-8). 


502  BOHEMIA. 

In  this  case,  more  than  in  that  of  Huss,  the  council  seems  to 
have  taken  upon  itself  the  part  of  an  inquisitorial  tribunal,  with 
its  commissioners  simply  as  examiners  to  take  testimony,  possibly 
because  Jerome  had  refused  to  accept  them  as  judges  on  account 
of  enmity  towards  him.  There  is  no  evidence  that  it  consented 
to  the  superfluous  infamy  of  torturing,  or  even  of  starving  its  vic- 
tim. The  commissioners  were  left  to  their  own  devices  as  to  ex- 
tracting a  confession,  and  May  9  they  made  another  report  of  the 
whole  case  from  beginning  to  end,  for  what  object  is  not  apparent, 
unless  to  demonstrate  their  helplessness.  Having  thus  wearied 
them  out,  Jerome  finally  promised  to  answer  categorically  before 
the  council.  Perhaps  it  was  curiosity  to  hear  him,  perhaps  the 
precedent  set  in  the  case  of  Huss  weighed  with  the  fathers.  The 
concession  was  made  to  him,  and  at  a  general  session  held  May 
23  he  was  brought  in  and  the  oath  was  offered  to  him.  He  re- 
fused to  take  it,  saying  that  he  would  do  so  if  he  would  be  allowed 
to  speak  freely,  but  if  he  was  only  to  say  yes  or  no  he  would  not. 
As  the  articles  were  read  over  he  remained  silent  as  to  a  portion, 
while  to  the  rest  he  answered  affirmatively  or  negatively,  occa- 
sionally making  a  distinction,  and  answering  with  admirable  readi- 
ness the  clamors  and  interruptions  which  assailed  him  from  all 
sides.  The  day  wore  away  in  this,  and  the  completion  of  the  hear- 
ing was  adjourned  till  the  26th.  Again  the  same  scene  occurred 
till  the  series  of  articles  was  exhausted,  when  the  chief  of  the  com- 
missioners, John,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  summed  up,  saying 
that  Jerome  was  convicted  of  fourfold  heresy ;  but  as  he  had  re- 
peatedly asked  to  be  heard  he  sliould  be  allowed  to  speak,  in  order 
to  silence  absurd  reflections  on  the  council ;  moreover,  if  he  was 
prepared  to  confess  and  repent,  he  still  would  be  received  to  mercy, 
but  if  obdurate,  justice  must  take  its  course.* 

Of  the  scene  which  followed  we  have  a  vivid  account  in  a  let- 
ter to  Leonardo  Aretino  from  Poggio  BraccioUni,  who  attended 
the  council  as  apostolic  secretary.  Poggio  had  already  been  pro- 
foundly impressed  with  the  quickness  and  readiness  of  a  man  who 
for  three  hundred  and  forty  days  had  lain  in  the  filth  and  squalor 
of  a  noisome  dungeon,  but  now  he  breaks  forth  in  unquaUfied  ad- 
miration—  "He  stood  fearless,  undaunted,  not  merely  despising 


Von  der  Hardt  IV.  690-1,  733-33,  748-56. 


JEROME    OF    PRAGUE.  5O3 

death,  but  longing  for  it,  like  another  Cato.  O  man  worthy  of 
eternal  remembrance  among  men !  If  he  held  beliefs  contrary  to 
the  rules  of  the  Church  I  do  not  praise  him,  but  I  admire  his  learn- 
ing, his  knowledge  of  so  many  things,  his  eloquence,  and  the  sub- 
tlety of  his  answers."  In  the  midst  of  that  turbulent  and  noisy 
crowd,  his  eloquence  was  so  great  that  Poggio  evidently  thinks  he 
would  have  been  acquitted  had  he  not  courted  death.* 

His  address  was  a  most  skilful  vindication,  gliding  with  seem- 
ingly careless  negligence  over  the  dangerous  spots  in  his  career — 
for  his  whole  life  had  been  made  the  subject  of  indictment — and 
giving  most  plausible  explanations  of  that  which  could  not  be  sup- 
pressed, as  though  the  Bohemian  troubles  had  been  solely  due  to 
political  differences.  As  for  his  recantation,  his  judges  had  prom- 
ised him  kindly  treatment  if  he  would  throw  himself  on  the  mercy 
of  the  council.  He  was  but  a  man,  with  a  human  dread  of  a  dread- 
ful death  by  fire  ;  he  had  weakly  yielded  to  persuasion,  he  had  ab- 
jured, he  had  written  to  Bohemia  as  required,  he  had  condemned 
the  teaching  of  John  Huss.  Here  he  rose  to  the  fuU  height  of 
his  manly  and  self-devoted  eloquence.  Huss  was  a  just  and  holy 
man,  to  whom  he  would  cleave  to  the  last ;  no  sin  that  he  had  ever 
committed  so  weighed  upon  his  conscience  as  his  cowardly  abju- 
ration, which  now  he  solemnly  revoked.  Wickliff  had  written 
with  a  profounder  truth  than  any  man  before  him,  and  dread  of 
the  stake  alone  could  have  induced  hhn  to  condemn  such  a  master, 
saving  only  the  doctrine  on  the  sacrament,  of  which  he  could  not 
approve.  Then  he  burst  forth  into  a  ringing  invective  on  the  vices 
of  the  clergy,  and  especially  of  the  Roman  curia,  which  had  stimu- 
lated Wickliff  and  Huss  to  their  efforts  for  reform.  The  good 
fathers  of  the  council  might  be  stunned  for  a  moment  by  the  fierce 
self-sacrifice  of  the  man  who  thus  deliberately  threw  away  his 
life,  but  they  soon  recovered  themselves,  and  quietly  assigned  the 
following  Saturday  for  his  definite  sentence.  Although,  as  a  self- 
confessed  relapsed,  he  was  entitled  to  no  further  consideration, 
they  proposed,  with  unusual  mercy,  to  give  him  four  days  to  re- 
consider and  repent,  but  he  had  been  addressing  an  audience  far 
beyond  the  narrow  walls  of  the  Cathedral  of  Constance,  and  his 
words  were  seeds  which  sprouted  forth  in  armed  warriors.f 

On  May  30  the  final  acts  of  the  tragedy  were  Imrried  through ; 

•  Von  dcr  Hardt  III.  64-9.  +  Ibiil.  IV.  754-62. 


504  BOHEMIA. 

the  council  assembled  early,  and  by  ten  o'clock  Jerome  was  at  the 
stake.  After  the  mass,  the  Bishop  of  Lodi  preached  a  sermon. 
He  had  been  selected  to  perform  the  same  office  at  the  condemna- 
tion of  lluss,  and  the  brutality  of  his  triumph  over  the  unfortu- 
nate prisoner  on  this  occasion  even  exceeded  his  former  effort. 
The  charity  and  tenderness  with  which  Jerome  had  been  treated 
ought  to  have  softened  his  heart,  even  had  the  recollection  of  his 
crimes  failed  to  do  so.  A  comparison  was  drawn  between  the 
favor  shown  him  and  the  severity  customary  with  suspected  her- 
etics. "You  were  not  tortured  —  I  wish  you  had  been,  for  it 
would  have  forced  you  to  vomit  forth  all  your  errors ;  such  treat- 
ment would  have  opened  your  eyes,  which  guilt  had  closed."  The 
nobles  present  were  called  upon  to  mark  how  Huss  and  Jerome, 
two  base-born  men,  plebeians  of  the  lowest  rank  and  unknown 
origin,  had  dared  to  trouble  the  noble  kingdom  of  Bohemia,  and 
what  evils  had  sprung  from  the  presumption  of  those  two  peas- 
ants. Then  Jerome  in  a  few  dignified  sentences  rephed,  asserting 
his  conscientiousness  and  deploring  his  condemnation  of  Wickhff 
and  Huss.  Cardinal  Zabarella,  he  said,  was  winning  him  over 
when  his  judges  were  changed  and  he  would  not  plead  to  new 
ones.  His  abjuration  was  read  to  him ;  he  acknowledged  it ;  he 
said  it  had  been  extorted  by  the  dread  of  fire.  Then  the  prose- 
cutor asked  for  a  definite  sentence  in  writing  against  him,  and  the 
head  commissioner,  John  of  Constantinople,  read  a  long  one  con- 
demning him  as  a  supporter  of  Wickhff  and  Huss,  and  ending 
with  the  declaration  that  he  was  a  relapsed  heretic  and  anathe- 
matized excommunicate.  To  this  the  council  unanimously  re- 
sponded '•''  Placet^''  There  was  no  pretence  of  asking  mercy  for 
him.  He  was  handed  over  to  the  secular  power  with  a  command 
that  it  should  do  its  duty  under  the  sentence  rendered.  Not  be- 
ing in  orders,  there  was  no  ceremony  of  degradation  to  be  per- 
formed, but  a  tall  paper  crown  with  painted  devils  was  brought. 
He  tossed  his  cap  among  the  prelates  and  put  on  the  crown,  say- 
ing, "  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  when  about  to  die  for  me,  wore  a 
crown  of  thorns.  In  place  of  that,  I  gladly  bear  this  for  his  sake," 
and  with  this  he  was  hurried  off  to  execution  on  the  same  spot 
where  Huss  had  suffered.* 


*  Von  der  Hardt  III.  55-60;  IV.  763-71.— Theod.  Vrie  Hist.  Cone.  Constant- 
Lib.  VII.  Dist.  4. 


EXECUTION    OF    JEROME.  505 

The  details  of  the  execution  were  much  the  same,  except  that 
Jerome  was  stripped  and  a  cloth  tied  around  his  loins.  He  sang 
the  Creed  and  a  litany,  and  when  his  voice  could  no  longer  be 
heard  in  the  flames  his  lips  were  still  seen  to  move  as  though 
praying  to  himself ;  after  his  beard  was  burned  off,  a  blister  the 
size  of  an  egg  was  seen  to  form  itself,  showing  that  he  still  was 
alive,  and  his  agony  was  unusually  prolonged,  through  his  extraor- 
dinary strength  and  vitality.  One  eye-witness  says  that  he  shrieked 
awfully,  but  other  unfriendly  witnesses  declare  that  he  continued 
praying  till  his  voice  was  checked  by  the  fire,  and  Poggio,  who 
was  present,  was  much  impressed  with  his  cheerful  courage  to  the 
last.  When  bound  to  the  stake,  the  executioner  offered  to  hght 
the  fire  from  behind,  where  he  could  not  see  it,  but  he  refused: 
"  Come  forward,"  he  said, "  and  light  the  fire  where  I  can  see  it. 
Had  I  feared  this,  I  would  not  have  been  here."  ^neas  Sylvius 
likewise  couples  him  with  Huss  for  the  unsurpassed  constancy  of 
his  death.  After  it  was  over,  his  bedding,  shoes,  cap,  and  all  his 
personal  effects  were  brought  from  his  dungeon  and  thrown  upon 
the  pile,  that  no  relic  of  him  might  be  left,  and  the  ashes  were  cast 
into  the  Ehine.* 

It  onl}'-  remained  to  secure  the  submission  of  John  of  Chlum, 
the  courageous  defender  of  Huss.  He  had  remained  in  Constance 
and  was  in  the  power  of  the  council.  "What  means  Avere  adopted 
for  his  abasement  do  not  appear,  but,  on  July  1,  he  swore  to  main- 
tain the  faith,  admitted  that  Huss  and  Jerome  had  suffered  justly, 
and  desired  letters  of  his  declaration  to  be  made,  that  he  might 
send  them  to  Bohemia. f 


*  Von  der  Hardt  III.  64-71  ;  IV.  771-2.— Richentals  Cronik  p.  83.— Theod. 
Vrie  Hist.  Cone.  Constant.  Lib.  viii.  Dist.  3.  —  Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell.  Hussit 
(Ludewig  VI.  141).— ^n.  Sylvii  Hist.  Bohem.  c.  36. 

t  Chron.  Glassberger  ann.  1416. 


CHAPTER  Vm. 

THE  HUSSITES. 

The  Council  of  Constance,  after  eighteen  months  of  labor,  had 
disposed  of  Huss  and  Jerome.  The  methods  employed  had  been 
the  only  ones  known  to  the  Church,  the  only  ones  possible  to  the 
council.  Two  centuries  earlier  the  corruptions  of  the  Church 
were  recognized  as  the  cause  and  excuse  of  the  revolt  of  the  Al- 
bigenses  and  TValdeuses,  but  the  revolt  was  ruthlessly  put  down 
without  an  effective  effort  to  remove  the  cause.  Now  again  un- 
checked corruption  had  produced  another  revolt  and  the  same 
policy  was  followed — to  leave  untouched  the  profitable  abuses  and 
punish  those  who  refused  to  tolerate  them,  and  who  rejected  the 
principles  out  of  which  such  abuses  ine^dtably  sprang.  The  coun- 
cil could  do  no  otherwise ;  the  traditions  of  procedure  established 
in  the  subjugation  of  the  Albigenses  and  the  succeeding  heresies 
furnished  the  only  precedent  and  machinery  through  which  it 
could  act.  Again  a  religious  revolt  had  been  provoked,  and  again 
that  revolt  was  nursed  and  intensified  till  its  only  recognized  cure 
lay  in  the  sword  of  the  crusader. 

The  prelates  and  doctors  assembled  in  Constance  could  not 
hesitate  for  a  moment  as  to  their  duty.  Canon  law  and  inquisi- 
torial practice  had  long  established  the  principle  that  the  only 
way  to  meet  heresy — and  opposition  to  the  constituted  authorities 
of  the  Church  was  heresy — was  by  force,  as  soon  as  argument 
was  found  ineffective.  The  disobedient  son  of  the  Church  who 
would  not  submit  was  to  be  cast  out,  after  due  admonition,  and 
castine:  out  meant  that  he  should  have  in  this  world  a  whole- 
some  foretaste  of  the  wrath  to  come,  in  order  to  serve  as  an 
edifying  example.  Accordingly  the  council  addressed  itself,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  to  the  task  of  widening  the  breach  with  Bo- 
hemia, of  consolidating  and  intensifying  the  indignation  caused 
by  the  execution  of  Huss  and  Jerome,  and  to  stigmatizing  as 


THE    COUNCIL    STIMULATES    REBELLION.         507 

heresy  the  belief  which  was  now  professed  by  the  majority  of 
Bohemians. 

The  council  had  proposed  to  follow  up  the  execution  of  Huss 
by  an  immediate  application  of  inquisitorial  methods  to  the  whole 
Bohemian  kingdom,  but,  at  the  instance  of  John,  Bishop  of  Lito- 
mysl,  it  had  commenced  by  the  expedient  of  giving  notice  in  its 
letter  of  July  26,  1415.  This,  as  we  have  seen,  only  added  to  the 
exasperation  of  Bohemia,  and  on  August  31  it  issued  to  Bishop 
John  letters  commissioning  him  with  inquisitorial  powers  to  sup- 
press all  heresy  in  Bohemia ;  if  he  could  not  perform  his  office  in 
safety  elsewhere  he  was  authorized  to  summon  all  suspect  to  his 
episcopal  seat  at  Litomysl.  "Wenceslas  dutifully  issued  to  him  a 
safe-conduct,  but  the  irate  Bohemians  were  already  ravaging  his 
territories,  and  he  consulted  prudence  in  not  venturing  his  person 
there.  The  canons  evidently  could  not  be  enforced  amid  a  people 
so  exasperated  ;  so,  on  September  23,  after  listening  to  the  recanta- 
tion of  Jerome,  the  council  tried  a  further  expedient,  by  a  decree 
appointing  John,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  and  John,  Bishop  of 
Senlis,  as  commissioners  (or,  rather,  inquisitors)  to  try  all  Hussite 
heretics.  They  were  empowered  to  summon  all  heretics  or  sus- 
pects to  appear  before  them  in  the  Roman  curia  by  public  edict,  to 
be  posted  in  the  places  frequented  by  such  heretics,  or  in  the  neigh- 
boring territories  if  it  were  dangerous  to  attempt  it  at  the  resi- 
dences of  the  accused,  and  such  edicts  might  be  either  general  in 
character  or  special.  This  was  strictly  according  to  rule,  and  if 
the  object  had  been  to  secure  the  legal  condemnation  in  absentia 
of  the  mass  of  the  Bohemian  nation,  it  was  well  adapted  for  the 
purpose  ;  but  as  the  nation  was  seething  in  revolt,  and  was  vener- 
ating Huss  and  Jerome  with  as  much  ardor  as  was  shown  in  Rome 
to  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  its  only  effect  was  to  strengthen  the 
hands  of  the  extremists.  This  was  seen  when,  on  December  30, 
1415,  an  address  was  delivered  to  the  council,  signed  by  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  Bohemian  nobles,  reiterating  their  complaints  of 
the  execution  of  Huss,  and  withdrawing  themselves  from  all  obe- 
dience. This  hardy  challenge  was  accepted  Februar}^  20,  1416, 
by  citing  all  the  signers  and  other  supporters  of  Huss  and  AVick- 
liff  to  appear  before  the  council  within  fifty  days  and  answer  to 
the  charge  of  heresy,  in  default  of  which  they  were  to  be  pro- 
ceeded against  as  contumacious.     As  it  was  not  safe  to  serve  this 


508  THE    HUSSITES. 

citation  on  them  personally,  or,  indeed,  anywhere  in  Bohemia,  it 
was  ordered  to  be  aiRxed  on  the  church  doors  at  Constance,  Rat- 
isbon,  Vienna,  and  Passau.  This  was  followed  up  with  all  the 
legal  forms ;  the  citations  were  affixed  to  the  church  doors,  and 
record  made  in  Constance  May  5,  in  Passau  May  3,  in  Vienna  May 
10,  and  in  Eatisbon  June  14,  21,  and  24  On  June  3  the  offend- 
ers were  declared  to  be  in  contumacy,  and  on  September  4  the 
further  prosecution  of  the  matter  was  intrusted  to  John  of  Con- 
stantinople.* 

Here  the  affair  seems  to  have  dropped,  for  it  had  long  been 
evident  that  the  inquisitorial  methods  were  of  no  avail  when  the 
accused  constituted  the  great  body  of  a  nation.  As  early  as  March 
27,  1416,  the  council  had,  without  waiting  to  see  the  result  of  its 
judicial  proceedings,  resolved  to  appeal  to  force,  if  yet  there  was 
sufficient  zeal  for  orthodoxy  in  Bohemia  to  render  such  appeal 
successful.  The  fanatic  John  of  Litomysl  was  armed  with  lega- 
tine  powers,  and  despatched  with  letters  to  the  lords  of  Hazem- 
burg,  John  of  Michaelsburg,  and  other  barons  known  as  opponents 
of  the  popular  cause.  The  council  recited  in  moving  terms  its 
patience  and  tenderness  in  dealing  with  Huss,  who  had  perished 
merely  through  his  own  hardness  of  heart.  In  spite  of  this,  his 
followers  had  addressed  to  the  council  libellous  and  defamatory 
letters,  affording  a  spectacle  at  once  horrible  and  ludicrous.  Her- 
esy is  constantly  spreading  and  contaminating  the  land,  priests 
and  monks  are  despoiled,  expelled,  beaten,  and  slain.  The  barons 
are  therefore  summoned,  in  conjunction  with  the  legate,  to  banish 
and  exterminate  all  these  persecutors,  regardless  of  friendship  and 
kinship.  Bishop  John's  mission  was  a  failure,  in  spite  of  letters 
written  by  Sigismund,  March  21  and  30,  in  which  he  thanked  the 
Catholic  nobles  for  their  devotion,  and  warned  the  Hussite  mag- 
nates that,  if  they  persisted,  Christendom  would  be  banded  against 
them  in  a  crusade.  The  University  of  Prague  responded,  May  23, 
with  a  public  declaration,  certifying  to  the  unblemished  orthodoxy 
and  supereminent  merits  of  Huss.  His  whole  life  spent  among 
them  had  been  without  a  flaw ;  his  learning  and  eloquence  had 


•  Palacky  Documenta,  pp.  566-7,  572-9,  602-3.— Von  der  Hardt  IV.  528, 
609-12,  724,  781-2,  823-40.— ^n.  Sylvii.  Hist.  Bobem.  c.  35.— Theod.  a  Niem 
Vit.  Joann.  PP.  XXIII.  Lib.  iii.  c.  13. 


PROGRESSIVE    ANTAGONISM.  509 

been  equalled  by  his  charity  and  humility ;  he  was  in  all  things  a 
man  of  surpassing  sanctity,  who  sought  to  restore  the  Church  to 
its  primitive  virtue  and  simplicity.  Jerome,  also,  whom  the  uni- 
versity seems  to  have  supposed  already  executed,  was  similarly 
lauded  for  his  learning  and  strict  Catholic  orthodoxy,  and  was  de- 
clared to  have  in  death  triumphed  gloriously  over  his  enemies. 
In  this  the  university  represented  with  moderation  the  prevaihng 
opinion  in  Bohemia.  The  more  earnest  disciples  did  not  hesitate 
to  declare  that  the  Passion  of  Christ  was  the  only  martyrdom  fit 
to  be  compared  with  that  of  IIuss.* 

There  was  evidently  no  middle  term  which  could  reconcile 
conflicting  opinions  so  firmly  entertained ;  and,  as  the  Cathohc 
nobles  of  Bohemia  could  not  be  stimulated  to  undertake  a  devas- 
tating civil  war,  the  council  naturally  turned  to  Sigismund.  In 
December,  1416,  a  doleful  epistle  was  addressed  to  him,  complain- 
ing that  the  execution  of  Huss  and  Jerome,  in  place  of  repressing 
heresy,  had  rendered  it  more  violent  than  ever.  As  though  men 
condemned  to  Satan  by  the  Church  were  the  chosen  of  God,  the 
two  heretics  were  venerated  as  saints  and  martyrs,  their  pictures 
shrined  in  the  churches,  and  their  names  invoked  in  masses.  The 
faithful  clergy  were  driven  out,  and  their  lot  rendered  more  mis- 
erable than  that  of  Jews.  The  barons  and  nobles  refuse  obedience 
to  the  mandates  of  the  council,  and  will  not  aUow  them  to  be  pub- 
lished. Communion  in  both  elements  is  taught  to  be  necessary  to 
salvation,  and  is  everywhere  practised.  Sigismund  is  therefore 
requested  to  do  his  duty,  and  reduce  by  force  these  rebellious  her- 
etics. Sigismund  replied  that  he  had  forwarded  the  document  to 
Wenceslas,  and  that  if  the  latter  had  not  power  to  suppress  the 
heretics  he  would  assist  him  with  all  his  force.  Sigismund  was 
in  no  position  to  undertake  the  task,  but  after  waiting  for  nine 
months  he  saw  an  opportunity  of  attacking  his  brother,  Avho  had 
been  utterly  powerless  to  control  the  storm.  In  a  circular  letter  of 
September  3,  1417,  addressed  to  the  faithful  in  Bohemia,  he  drew 
a  moving  picture  of  the  excesses  committed  on  the  Bohemian 
clergy,  compelled  by  Neronian  tortures  to  abjure  their  faith.    His 


*  Epistt.  Ixiii.,  Ixv.  (Jo.  IIiis  MonuiiK-nt.  T.  79-80,  82). — Palacky  Documenta, 
pp.  611-14,  G21.— Liulewig  Rcl.  jNISS.  VI.  09.— Slephaui  Cartus.  Epist.  ad  Hns- 
sitas  P.  I.  c.  5  (Pez  Thesaur.  Anecd.  IV.  ii.  521). 


510  THE    HUSSITES. 

brother  was  suspected  of  favoring  the  heretics,  as  no  one  could 
conceive  that  such  wickedness  could  be  committed  under  so  pow- 
erful a  king  without  his  connivance,  and  the  council  had  decided 
to  proceed  against  him,  but  had  consented  to  delay  at  the  instance 
of  Sigismund,  who  for  three  years  had  been  strenuously  endeavor- 
ing to  avert  the  prosecution.  He  warns  every  one,  in  conclusion, 
not  to  aid  the  heresy,  but  to  exert  themselves  for  its  suppression.* 

Shortly  after  this,  November  11,  1417,  the  weary  schism  was 
closed  by  the  election  to  the  papacy  of  Martin  V.  Under  the  im- 
pulsion of  a  capable  and  resolute  pontiff,  who,  as  Cardinal  Ottone 
Colonna,  had,  in  1411,  condemned  and  excommunicated  Huss,  the 
reunited  Church  pressed  eagerly  forward  to  render  the  conflict 
inevitable.  In  February,  1418,  the  council  pubhshed  a  series  of 
twenty-four  articles  as  its  ultimatum.  King  Wenceslas  must  swear 
to  suppress  the  heresy  of  Wickliff  and  Huss.  Minute  directions 
were  given  to  restore  the  old  order  of  things  throughout  Bohemia ; 
priests  and  Catholics  who  had  been  driven  out  were  to  be  rein- 
stated and  compensated  ;  image  and  relic  worship  to  be  resumed, 
and  the  rites  of  the  Church  observed.  All  infected  with  heresy 
were  to  abjure  it,  while  their  leading  doctors,  John  Jessenitz,  Ja- 
cobel  of  Mies,  Simon  of  Rokyzana,  and  six  others,  were  to  betake 
themselves  to  Eome  for  trial.  Communion  in  both  elements  was 
to  be  specially  abjured,  and  all  who  held  the  doctrines  of  Wickliff 
and  Huss,  or  regarded  Huss  and  Jerome  as  holy  men,  were  to  be 
burned  as  relapsed  heretics  ;  that  is,  without  opportunity  of  recan- 
tation or  hope  of  pardon.  Finally,  every  one  was  required  to  lend 
assistance  to  the  episcopal  officials  when  called  upon,  under  pain 
of  punishment  as  f autors  of  heresy.  It  was  simply  the  application 
of  existing  laws,  as  we  have  so  many  times  already  seen  them 
brought  to  bear  on  offending  communities.  To  enforce  it,  Sigis- 
mund promised  to  visit  the  rebellious  region  with  four  bishops 
and  an  inquisitor,  and  to  burn  all  who  Avould  not  recant.f 

This  was  speedily  followed,  February  22,  1418,  by  a  bull  of 

»  Von  der  Hardt  IV.  1077-83,  1410-13.  — Palacky  Documenta,  pp.  652^. 
Doubtless  there  was  much  ill-treatment  of  such  of  the  clergy  as  remained  faith- 
ful to  Rome.  In  1417  Stephen  of  Olmiitz  complains  that  they  were  driven  from 
their  benefices,  beaten,  and  slain. — Steph.  Cartus.  Ej^ist.  ad  Hussit.  P.  i.  c.  3 
(Fez  Thesaur.  Anecd.  IV.  ii.  517). 

+  Von  der  Hardt  IV.  1514-18.— Palacky  Documenta,  pp.  676-77. 


BOHEMIA    IN    REBELLION.  611 

Martin  V.,  addressed  to  the  prelates  and  inquisitors,  not  only  of 
Bohemia  and  Moravia,  but  of  the  surrounding  territories,  Passau, 
Salzburg,  Katisbon,  Bamberg,  Misnia,  Silesia,  and  Poland.  The 
pope  expressed  his  grief  and  surprise  that  the  heretics  had  not 
been  brought  to  repentance  by  the  miserable  deaths  of  Huss  and 
Jerome,  but  had  been  excited  by  the  devil  to  yet  greater  sins. 
The  prelates  and  inquisitors  were  ordered  to  track  them  out  and 
deliver  them  to  the  secular  arm ;  and  such  as  proved  themselves 
remiss  in  the  work  were  to  be  removed,  and  replaced  with  more 
energetic  successors.  Secular  potentates  were  commanded  to  seize 
and  hold  in  chains  all  heretics,  and  to  punish  them  duly  when 
convicted,  and  a  long  series  of  instructions  was  given  as  to  trials, 
penalties,  and  confiscations,  in  strict  accordance  with  the  inquisi- 
torial practice  which  had  so  long  been  current.  If  this  was  in- 
tended to  give  countenance  to  Sigismund's  promised  expedition  it 
proved  useless,  for  the  royal  promise  ended  as  Sigismund's  were 
wont  to  do,  and  the  next  we  hear  of  him  is  a  letter  of  December, 
lilS,  to  Wenceslas,  threatening  that  unlucky  monarch  with  a  cru- 
sade if  he  shall  not  suppress  heresy.* 

The  glimpse  into  the  condition  of  Bohemia  afforded  by  these 
documents  is,  perhaps,  somewhat  highly  colored,  yet  on  the  whole 
not  incorrect.  The  kingdom  was  almost  wholly  withdrawn  from 
obedience  to  the  Church,  although  the  German  miners  in  the 
mountains  of  Ivuttenberg  Avere  already  slaying  the  native  heretics. 
The  Wickliffite  doctrines  adopted  by  Huss  were  triumphant,  and 
the  pressure  of  central  authority  being  removed,  men  were  natu- 
rally using  the  unaccustomed  liberty  to  develop  further  and  fur- 
ther the  ruling  hostility  to  the  sacerdotal  system.  Utraquism,  or 
communion  in  both  elements,  had  been  received  with  a  frenzy  of 
welcome  which  seems  almost  inexplicable ;  it  aroused  universal 
enthusiasm,  whicli  was  only  stimulated  by  the  interdict  pronounced 
on  it  by  Archbishop  Conrad,  November  1, 1415,  and  repeated  Feb- 
ruary 1,  1416.  When,  in  1417,  the  University  of  Prague  issued  a 
solemn  declaration  in  its  favor  and  pronounced  void  any  human 
ordinance  modifying  the  command  of  Christ  and  the  custom  of  the 
early  Church,  it  speedily  became  the  distinguishing  mark  which 
separated  the  Hussite  from  the  Catholic.     Other  innovations  had 


Von  der  Hardt  IV.  1518-31.— Palacky  pp.  684-6. 


512  THE    HUSSITES. 

already  been  introduced,  and  it  was  impossible  that  all  should 
Hgree  on  the  bounds  to  be  set  between  conservatism  and  progress. 
As  early  as  1416  Christann  of  Prachatitz  remonstrated  with  Wen- 
ceslas  Coranda  for  denying  purgatory  and  the  utihty  of  prayers 
for  the  dead  and  the  suffrages  of  saints,  for  refusing  adoration  to 
the  Virgin,  for  casting  out  relics  and  images,  for  administering 
the  Eucharist  to  newly-baptized  infants,  for  discarding  all  rites 
and  ceremonies,  and  reducing  the  Church  to  the  simplicity  of 
primitive  times.  Others  taught  that  divine  service  could  be  cele- 
brated anywhere  as  well  as  in  consecrated  churches ;  that  baptism 
could  be  performed  by  laymen  in  ponds  and  running  streams. 
Already  there  was  forming  the  sect  which,  in  carrying  out  the 
views  of  Wickliff,  came  to  be  known  as  Taborites.  The  more  con- 
servative element,  which  adopted  the  name  of  Calixtins,  or  Utra- 
quists,  satisfied  with  what  had  been  acquired,  endeavored  to  set 
bounds  to  the  zeal  which  threatened  to  remove  all  the  ancient 
landmarks.  Parties  were  beginning  to  range  themselves,  and  on 
January  25, 1417,  probably  not  long  before  its  declaration  in  favor 
of  Utraquism,  the  University  issued  a  letter  reciting  that  there 
were  frequent  disputes  as  to  the  existence  of  purgatory  and  the 
use  of  benedictions  and  other  church  observances ;  to  put  an  end 
to  these  it  pronounced  obligatory  on  all  to  believe  in  purgatory 
and  in  the  utility  of  suffrages,  prayers,  and  alms  for  the  dead,  of 
images  of  Christ  and  the  saints,  of  incensing,  aspersions,  bell-ring- 
ing, the  kiss  of  peace,  of  benediction  of  the  holy  font,  salt,  water, 
wax,  fire,  palms,  eggs,  cheese,  and  other  eatables.  Any  one  teach- 
ing otherwise  was  not  to  be  listened  to  until  he  should  prove  the 
truth  of  his  doctrine  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  University.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1418,  it  was  obliged  to  renew  the  declaration,  with  the 
addition  of  condemning  the  doctrines  which  pronounced  against 
aU  oaths,  judicial  executions,  and  sacraments  administered  by  sin- 
ful priests,  showing  that  Waldensian  tenets  were  making  rapid 
progress  among  the  Taborites.* 

All  this  indicates  the  questions  which  were  occupying  men's 
minds  and  the  differences  which  were  establishing  themselves. 


*  Palacky  Documenta,  pp.  631-2,  633-8, 654-6,  679.— Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell. 
Hussit.  (Ludewig  VI.  138-9).— Jo.  Hus  Monument.  II.  364.— ^gid.  Carlerii  Lib. 
de  Legation.  (Monument  Concil.  General.  Saec.  XV.  T.  I.  pp.  385-6). 


RELIGIOUS    DIFFERENCES.  513 

Opinions  were  too  strongly  held,  and  mutual  toleration  was  too 
little  understood  for  peaceful  discussion,  and  excitement  daily 
grew  higher,  leading  to  tumults  and  bloodshed.  In  the  spirit  of 
unrest  which  was  abroad,  men  and  women  of  the  more  advanced 
views  from  all  parts  of  the  kingdom  began  assembling  on  a  moun- 
tain near  Bechin,  to  which  they  gave  the  name  of  Tabor,  where 
they  received  the  sacrament  in  both  kinds.  These  assemblages 
were  larger  on  feast  days,  and  on  the  day  of  Mary  Magdalen, 
July  22,  1419,  the  multitude  was  computed  at  forty  thousand. 
Numbers  gave  courage,  and  there  was  even  talk  of  deposing  King 
Wenceslas  and  replacing  him  with  Nicholas  Lord  of  Hussinetz, 
whose  popularity  had  been  increased  by  his  banishment  for  advo- 
cating their  cause  with  the  monarch.  From  this  they  were  dis- 
suaded by  their  chief  spiritual  leader,  the  priest  Wenceslas  Coranda, 
who  pointed  out  that  as  the  king  was  an  indolent  drunkard,  per- 
mitting them  to  do  what  they  liked,  they  would  scarce  benefit 
themselves  by  a  change.  The  abandonment  of  this  project,  how- 
ever, did  not  assure  peace.  On  July  30  there  was  a  tumult  in  the 
Neustadt  of  Prague ;  at  command  of  the  king,  the  authorities  en- 
deavored to  prevent  the  progress  of  a  procession  bearing  the  sac- 
rament ;  the  people  rose,  and  under  the  lead  of  John  Ziska,  whose 
fiery  zeal  and  cool  audacity  were  rapidly  bringing  him  to  the  front, 
they  rushed  into  the  town-hall  and  cast  out  of  the  wmdows  such 
of  the  magistrates  as  they  found  there,  who  were  promptly  slain 
by  the  mob  below.  The  agitation  and  alarm  caused  by  this  affair 
brought  on  King  Wenceslas  an  attack  of  paralysis,  of  which  he 
died  August  15.* 

Feeble  as  had  been  the  royal  authority,  it  yet  had  served  as  a 
restraint  upon  the  hostile  sects  eager  to  tear  each  other  to  pieces. 
With  the  death  of  the  king  the  untamable  passions  burst  forth. 
Two  days  afterwards  the  churches  and  convents  were  mobbed, 
the  images  and  organs  were  broken,  and  those  in  which  the  cup 
had  been  refused  to  the  laity  were  the  objects  of  special  vengeance. 
Priests  and  monks  were  taken  prisoners,  and  within  a  few  days 
the  Dominican  and  Carthusian  convents  were  burned.  Queen 
Sophia  endeavored,  in  vain,  to  maintain  order  with  such  of  the 


*  Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell.  Hussit.  (Ludewig  VI.  pp.  142-44).— ^En.  Sylvii 
Hist.  Bohetn.  c.  36,  37. 

n.— 33 


514  THE    HUSSITES. 

barons  as  remained  loyal ;  civil  war  broke  forth,  until,  on  Kovem- 
ber  13,  the  queen  concluded  with  the  cities  of  Prague  a  truce  to 
last  until  April  23, 1420,  the  queen  promising  to  maintain  the  law 
of  God  and  communion  in  both  elements,  while  the  citizens  pledged 
themselves  to  refrain  from  image-breaking  and  the  destruction  of 
convents.  Mutual  exasperation,  however,  was  too  great  to  be 
restrained.  Ziska  came  to  Prague  and  destroyed  churches  and 
monasteries  in  the  city  and  neighborhood ;  Queen  Sophia  laid 
siege  to  Pilsen ;  a  neighborhood  war  broke  out  in  which  shocking 
cruelties  were  perpetrated  on  both  sides ;  German  miners  of  Caur- 
zim  and  Kuttenberg  threw  into  abandoned  mines  all  the  Calix- 
tins  on  whom  they  could  lay  their  hands,  and  some  Bavarians  who 
were  coming  to  the  assistance  of  Kackzo  of  Ryzmberg  tied  to  a 
tree  and  burned  the  priest  Naakvasa,  a  zealous  CaUxtin.  Ziska 
was  not  behindhand  in  this,  and  in  burning  convents  not  infre- 
quently allowed  the  monks  to  share  the  fate  of  their  buildings. 
In  the  desultory  war  which  raged  everywhere  both  sides  cut  off 
the  hands  and  feet  of  prisoners.* 

Sigismund  was  now  the  lawful  King  of  Bohemia,  and  he  came 
to  claim  his  inheritance.  As  a  preliminary  step  he  sent  envoys  to 
Prague  offering  to  leave  the  use  of  the  cup  as  it  had  been  under 
Wenceslas,  to  call  a  general  assembly  of  the  nation,  and  after  con- 
sultation to  refer  any  questions  to  the  Holy  See.  A  meeting  of 
the  barons  and  clergy  was  held  which  agreed  to  accept  the  terms. 
On  Christmas  Day,  1419,  he  came  to  Briinn,  and  thither  flocked 
the  magnates  and  representatives  of  the  cities  to  tender  their  alle- 
giance. The  envoys  of  Prague,  it  is  true,  persisted  in  using  the 
cup,  and  there  was  an  interdict  in  consequence  placed  on  Briinn 
during  their  stay,  but  when  he  ordered  them  to  remove  the  chains 
from  the  streets  of  Prague,  and  destroy  the  fortifications  which 
they  had  raised  against  the  castle,  there  was  no  refusal,  and  on 
tneir  return,  January  3,  1420,  his  commands  were  obeyed.  His 
natural  faithlessness  soon  showed  itself.  He  changed  all  the  cas- 
tellans and  officials  who  were  favorable  to  the  Hussites ;  the  Cath- 
olics who  had  fled  or  been  expelled  returned  and  commenced  to 
triumph  over  their  enemies ;  and  a  royal  edict  was  issued,  in  obe- 


*  Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell.  Hussit.  (Ludewig  VI.  145-52,  154-56).--Hist.  Per- 
secut.  Eccles.  Bohem.  pp.  37-8. — Camerarii  Hist.  Frat.  Orthod.  p.  49. 


THE    TABORITES.— REBELLION.  515 

dience  to  the  decrees  of  Constance,  commanding  all  those  in  au- 
thority to  exterminate  the  Wickliffites  and  Hussites  and  those 
who  used  the  sacramental  cup.  Still,  the  kingdom  made  no  sign 
of  organized  opposition  to  him,  except  that  the  provident  Ziska 
and  his  followers,  seeing  the  wrath  to  come,  diligently  set  to  work 
to  fortify  Mount  Tabor.  Strong  by  nature,  it  soon  was  made  vir- 
tually impregnable,  and  for  a  generation  it  remained  the  strong- 
hold of  the  extremists  who  became  renowned  throughout  the  world 
as  Taborites.  Mostly  peasant-folk,  they  showed  to  the  chivalry 
of  Europe  what  could  be  done  by  freemen,  animated  by  religious 
zeal  and  race  hatred ;  their  rustic  wagons  made  a  rampart  which 
the  most  vahant  knights  learned  not  to  assail;  armed  sometimes 
only  with  iron-shod  flails,  the  hardy  zealots  did  not  hesitate  to 
throw  themselves  upon  the  best-appointed  troops,  and  often  bore 
them  down  with  the  sheer  weight  of  the  attack.  Wild  and  undis- 
ciplined, they  were  often  cruel,  but  their  fanatic  courage  rendered 
them  a  terror  to  all  Germany.* 

Nothing,  probably,  could  have  averted  an  eventual  explosion ; 
but,  for  the  moment,  it  seemed  that  Sigismund  was  about  to  enter 
on  peaceable  possession  of  his  kingdom,  and  any  subsequent  rebel- 
lion would  have  been  attempted  under  great  disadvantages.  Sud- 
denly, however,  an  act  of  inconsiderate  and  gratuitous  fanaticism 
set  all  Bohemia  aflame.  Some  trouble  in  Silesia  had  called  Sigis- 
mund to  Breslau,  where  he  was  joined  by  a  papal  legate  armed 
by  Martin  Y.  with  power  to  proclaim  a  crusade  with  Holy  Land 
indulgences.  John  Krasa,  a  merchant  of  Prague,  who  chanced  to 
be  there,  talked  over  boldly  about  the  innocence  of  Huss ;  he  was 
arrested,  persisted  in  his  faith,  and  was  condemned  by  the  legate 
and  prelates  who  were  with  Sigismund  to  be  dragged  by  the  heels 
at  a  horse's  tail  to  the  place  of  execution  and  burned.  "While 
lying  in  prison  he  was  joined  by  Nicholas  of  Bethlehem,  a  student 
of  Prague,  who  had  been  sent  by  the  city  to  Sigismund  to  offer  to 
receive  him  if  he  would  not  interfere  with  the  use  of  the  cup  to 
the  lait3^  In  place  of  listening  to  him  he  was  tried  as  a  heretic 
and  tlirown  into  prison  to  await  the  result.  Krasa  encouraged 
him  to  endure  to  the  last,  and  both  were  brought  forth  on  March 


*  ^gid.  Carlerii  Lib.  do  Legation.  (Mon.  Concil.  General.  Saec.  XV.  T.  L 
p.  387).— Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell.  Hussit.  (Ludewig  VL  152-4,  157-8,  168,  173). 


516  THE    HUSSITES. 

15,  1420,  to  undergo  the  punishment.  As  the  feet  of  Nicholas 
were  about  to  be  attached  to  the  horse,  his  courage  gave  way  and 
he  recanted.  Krasa  was  undaunted ;  the  legate  followed  him,  as 
he  was  dragged  to  the  place  of  execution,  exhorting  him  to  repent, 
but  in  vain ;  he  was  attached  half -dead  to  the  stake  and  duly 
burned.  Two  days  later,  March  17,  the  legate  proclaimed  the 
crusade.  The  die  was  cast ;  the  Church  so  willed  it,  and  a  new 
Albigensian  war  was  inevitable.* 

There  was  wavering  no  longer  in  Bohemia.  The  events  at 
Breslau  united  all,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  barons  and  such 
Germans  as  were  left,  in  resistance  against  Sigismund.  The  preach- 
ers thundered  against  him  as  the  Red  Dragon  of  the  Apocalypse. 
By  April  3  the  citizens  of  Utraquist  Prague  had  bound  themselves 
by  a  solemn  oath  with  the  Taborites  to  defend  themselves  against 
him  to  the  last,  and  were  busy  in  preparations  to  sustain  a  siege. 
Sigismund's  forces  were  wholly  inadequate  for  the  conquest  of  a 
virtually  united  kingdom.  After  an  advance  to  Kuttenberg  he 
was  forced  to  withdraw  and  await  the  assembling  of  the  crusade, 
which  took  long  to  organize,  and  did  not  burst  in  its  fury  over  Bo- 
hemia until  the  following  year,  1421.  It  was  on  a  scale  to  crush 
all  resistance.  In  its  mass  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men 
all  Europe  was  represented,  from  Russia  to  Spain  and  from  Sicily 
to  England.  The  reunited  Church  aroused  all  Christendom  to 
stamp  out  the  revolt,  and  the  treasures  of  salvation  were  poured 
lavishly  forth  to  exterminate  those  who  dared  to  maintain  the  inno- 
cence of  Huss  and  Jerome,  and  to  take  the  Eucharist  as  all  Chris- 
tians had  done  until  within  two  hundred  years.  The  war  was 
waged  with  desperation.  Five  times  during  1421  the  crusaders  in- 
vaded Bohemia,  and  five  times  they  were  beaten  back  disastrously. 
The  gain  to  the  faith  was  scarce  perceptible,  for  Sigismund  stripped 
the  churches  of  all  their  precious  ornaments,  declaring  that  he  was 


*  Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell.  Hussit.  (Ludewig  VI.  159). — Raynald.  ann.  1420, 
No.  13. — Hist.  Persecut.  Eccles.  Bohem.  pp.  39^0. — ^gid.  Carlerii  Lib.  de  Le- 
gation, loc.  cit. 

There  was  warning  also  to  the  democratic  party  among  the  Bohemians  in  the 
vengeance  taken  by  Sigismund  on  citizens  of  Breslau  who  had  been  concerned 
in  an  uprising  similar  to  tliat  of  Prague.  On  March  7  he  caused  twenty-three 
of  them  to  be  beheaded. — Bezold,  Konig  Sigmund  und  die  Reichskriege  gegen 
die  Husiten,  Miinchen,  1873,  p.  37. 


INTERNAL    RELIGIOUS    DISCORD.  517 

not  impelled  by  laxik  of  reverence,  but  by  a  prudent  desire  to  pre- 
vent their  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  Hussites,  Both  sides  per- 
petrated cruelties  happily  unknown  save  in  the  ferocity  of  religious 
wars.  During  the  siege  of  Prague  all  Bohemians  captured  were 
burned  as  heretics  whether  they  used  the  cup  or  not ;  and  on  July 
19  the  besieged  demanded  of  the  magistrates  sixteen  German  pris- 
oners, whom  they  took  outside  of  the  walls  and  burned  in  hogs- 
heads in  full  sight  of  the  invading  army.  We  can  estimate  the 
mercilessness  of  the  strife  when  it  was  reckoned  among  the  good 
deeds  of  George,  Bishop  of  Passau,  who  accompanied  Albert  of 
Austria,  that  by  his  intercession  he  saved  the  lives  of  many  Bohe- 
mian captives.* 

It  is  not  our  province  to  follow  in  detail  this  bloody  struggle, 
in  which  for  ten  years  the  Hussites  successfully  defied  all  the 
forces  that  Martin  and  Sigismund  could  raise  against  them.  When 
the  crusaders  came  they  presented  a  united  front,  but  within  the 
line  of  common  defence  they  were  torn  with  dissensions,  bitter  in 
proportion  to  their  exaltation  of  religious  feehng.  The  right  of 
private  judgment  when  once  estabhshed,  by  admitting  the  doc- 
trines of  Wickliff  and  Huss,  was  not  easily  restrained,  nor  could 
it  be  expected  that  those  who  were  persecuted  would  learn  from 
persecution  the  lesson  of  tolerance.  In  the  wild  tumult,  intellec- 
tual, moral,  and  social,  which  convulsed  Bohemia,  no  doctrines 
were  too  extravagant  to  lack  believers. 

In  1418  it  is  related  that  forty  Pikardi  with  their  wives  and 
children  came  to  Prague,  where  they  were  hospitably  received 
and  cared  for  by  Queen  Sophia  and  other  persons  of  rank.  They 
had  no  priest,  but  one  of  their  number  used  to  read  to  them  out 
of  certain  little  books,  and  they  took  communion  in  one  element. 
They  vanish  from  view  without  leaving  a  trace  of  their  influence, 
and  were  doubtless  Beghards  driven  from  their  homes  and  seek- 
ing a  refuge  beyond  the  reach  of  orthodoxy.  Yet  their  name 
remained,  and  was  long  used  in  Bohemia  as  a  term  of  the  bit- 
terest contempt  for  those  who  denied  transubstantiation.  Subse- 
quently, however,  there  was  a  more  portentous  demonstration  of 

*  Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell.  Hussit.  (Ludewig  VI.  161-3,  167-70,  181).  — An- 
drese  Ratispon.  Cliron.  (Eccard.  Corp.  Hist.  I.  3147).— Schrodl,  Passavia  Sacra, 
p.  289.— Naucleri  Chron.  p.  933  (Ed.  1544).— Hist.  Persecut.  Eccles.  Boliem. 
pp.  43-44, 


518  TOE    HUSSITES. 

the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Spirit,  A  stranger,  said  to  come  from 
Flanders,  whose  name,  "  Pichardus,"  shows  evidently  that  he  was 
a  Beghard,  disseminated  the  doctrine  of  the  Brethren,  and  among 
other  things  that  nakedness  was  essential  to  purity,  which  we 
have  seen  was  one  of  the  extravagances  of  the  sect.  The  prac- 
tice was  one  which  in  a  more  settled  state  of  society  could  not 
have  been  ventured  on,  but  in  Bohemia  he  found  little  difficulty 
in  obtaining  quite  a  large  following  of  both  sexes,  with  whom  he 
settled  on  an  island  in  the  river  Luznic,  and  dignified  them  with 
the  name  of  Adamites.  Perhaps  they  might  have  flourished  un- 
disturbed had  not  fanaticism,  or  possibly  retaliation  for  aggres- 
sion, led  them  to  make  a  foray  on  the  mainland  and  slay  some 
two  hundred  peasants,  whom  they  styled  children  of  the  devil. 
Ziska's  attention  being  thus  drawn  to  them,  he  captured  the  isl- 
and and  exterminated  them.  Fifty  of  them,  men  and  women, 
were  burned  at  Klokot,  and  those  who  escaped  were  hunted  down 
and  gradually  shared  the  same  fate,  which  they  met  with  un- 
daunted cheerfulness,  laughing  and  singing  as  they  went  to  the 
stake.* 

In  the  sudden  removal  of  ecclesiastical  repression  of  free 
thought  it  was  inevitable  that  unbalanced  minds  should  riot  in 
extravagant  speculation.  Among  the  zealots  who  subsequently 
developed  into  the  sect  of  the  Taborites  there  was  at  first  a  strong 
tendency  to  apocalyptic  prophecy  suited  to  the  times.  First,  there 
was  to  be  a  period  of  unsparing  vengeance,  during  which  safety 
could  be  found  only  in  five  specified  cities  of  refuge,  after  which 
would  follow  the  second  advent  of  Christ,  and  the  reign  of  peace 
and  love  among  the  elect,  and  earth  would  become  a  paradise. 
At  first,  the  destruction  of  the  wicked  was  to  be  the  work  of 
God,  but  as  passions  became  fiercer  it  was  held  to  be  the  duty 
of  the  righteous  to  cut  them  off  without  sparing.  These  Chili- 
asts  or  Millenarians  had  for  their  leader  Martin  Huska,  surnamed 
Loquis,  on  account  of  his  eloquence,  and  numbered  among  them 
Coranda  and  other  prominent  Taborite  priests,  Waldensian  in- 
fluence is  visible  in  some  features  of  their  faith,  and  they  rendered 
themselves  peculiarly  obnoxious  by  the  denial  of  transubstantia- 


*  Palacky,  Beziehungen,  pp.  20-1.— ^n.  Sylvii  Hist.  Bohem.  c.  41. — Du- 
bravii  Hist.  Bohem.  Lib,  27. 


CHILIASTS.  — CALIXTINS.  519 

tion.  For  this  they  were  exposed  to  pitiless  persecution  wherever 
their  adversaries  could  exercise  it.  One  of  their  leading  mem- 
bers, a  cobbler  of  Prague,  named  Wenceslas,  was  burned  in  a 
hogshead,  July  23,  1421,  for  refusing  to  rise  at  the  elevation  of 
the  host,  and  soon  afterwards  three  priests  sliared  the  same  fate 
because  they  refused  to  light  candles  before  the  sacrament.  Mar- 
tin Loquis  himself  was  arrested  in  February  of  the  same  year, 
but  was  released  at  the  intercession  of  the  Taborites,  and  set  out 
with  a  companion  to  seek  Procopius  in  Moravia.  At  Chrudim, 
however,  the  travellers  were  arrested,  and  were  burned  at  Hra- 
disch  after  two  months  of  torture  vainly  inflicted  to  wean  them 
from  their  errors  and  force  them  to  reveal  the  names  of  their  as- 
sociates. As  a  distinct  sect  the  Chiliasts  speedily  disappear  from 
view,  but  their  members  remained  a  portion  of  the  Taborites,  the 
development  of  whose  opinions  they  profoundly  influenced.  In 
the  delegation  sent  to  Basle,  in  1433,  Peter  of  Zatce,  who  repre- 
sented the  Orphans,  had  been  a  Chihast.* 

Thus  these  minor  sects  vanished  as  parties  organized  them- 
selves in  a  permanent  form,  and  the  Bohemian  reformers  are 
found  divided  into  two  camps — the  moderates,  known  as  Calix- 
tins  or  Utraquists,  from  their  chief  characteristic,  the  administra- 
tion of  the  cup  to  the  laity,  and  the  extremists,  or  Taborites. 

The  Calixtins  virtually  regarded  the  teachings  of  Huss  and 
Jacobel  of  Mies,  as  a  finahty.  When,  after  the  death  of  Wen- 
ceslas, the  necessity  of  some  definite  declaration  of  principles  was 
felt,  the  University  of  Prague,  on  August  1,  1420,  adopted,  with 
but  one  dissenting  voice,  four  articles  which  became  for  more 
than  a  century  the  distinguishing  platform  of  their  sect.  As  con- 
cisely enunciated  by  the  University  they  appeared  simple  enough  : 
I.  Free  preaching  of  the  Word  of  God ;  II.  Communion  in  both 
elements  for  the  laity ;  III.  The  clergy  to  be  deprived  of  all  do- 
minion over  temporal  possessions,  and  to  be  reduced  to  the  evan- 
gelical hfe  of  Christ  and  the  apostles ;  lY.  AU  offences  against 
divine  law  to  be  punished  without  exception  of  person  or  condi- 


*  Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  Bell.  Hussit.  (Ludewig  VI.  202-7). — Palacky,  Bezie- 
hungen,  p.  31. — J.  Goll,  Quellen  u.  Untersuchungen  zur  Geschichte  der  Bohm- 
ischen  Briider,  Prag,  1882,  II.  10-11,  57-60.— Hist.  Persecut.  Eccles.  Bohem.  pp 
46-8. — Palacky,  Preef.  ia  Mon.  Cone.  Gen.  Saec.  XV.  p.  xx. 


520  THE    HUSSITES. 

tion.  These  four  articles  were  speedily  accepted  by  the  strongly 
Calixtin  community  of  Prague,  and  were  proclaimed  to  the  world 
in  various  forms  which  added  to  their  completeness  and  rendered 
their  purport  definite.  Any  one  was  declared  a  heretic  who  did 
not  accept  the  Apostles',  Athanasian,  and  Nicene  creeds,  the 
seven  sacraments  of  the  Church,  and  the  existence  of  purgatory. 
Offences  against  the  law  of  God  were  declared  to  be  worthy  of 
death,  both  of  the  offender  and  those  who  connived  at  them,  and 
were  defined  to  be,  among  the  people,  fornication,  banqueting, 
theft,  homicide,  perjury,  lying,  arts  superfluous,  deceitful,  and 
superstitious,  avarice,  usury,  etc. :  among  the  clergy,  simoniacal 
exactions,  such  as  fees  for  administering  the  sacraments,  for  preach- 
ing, burying,  bell-ringing,  consecration  of  churches  and  altars,  as 
well  as  the  sale  of  preferment ;  also  concubinage  and  fornication, 
quarrels,  vexing  and  spoiling  the  people  with  frivolous  citations, 
greedy  exactions  of  tribute,  etc.* 

Upon  this  basis  the  Cahxtin  Church  proceeded  to  organize 
itself  in  a  council  held  at  Prague  in  1421.  Four  leading  doctors, 
John  of  Przibram,  Procopius  of  Pilsen,  Jacobel  of  Mies,  and  John 
of  Neuberg,  were  made  supreme  governors  of  the  clergy  through- 
out the  kingdom,  with  absolute  power  of  punishment.  'No  one 
was  to  teach  any  new  doctrine  without  first  submitting  it  to  them 
or  to  a  provincial  synod.  Transubstantiation  was  emphatically 
aflBrmed  as  well  as  the  seven  sacraments.  The  daily  use  of  the 
Eucharist  was  recommended  to  all,  including  infants  and  the  sick. 
The  canon  of  the  mass  was  simplified  and  restored  to  primitive 
usage.  Auricular  confession  was  prescribed,  as  well  as  the  use 
of  the  chrism  and  of  holy  water  in  baptism.  Clerks  were  to  be 
distinguished  by  tonsure,  vestments,  and  conduct.  Every  priest 
was  to  possess  a  cop}'-  of  the  Scriptures,  or  at  least  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  stringent  regulations  were  adopted  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  priestly  morahty,  including  the  prohibition  of  their 
protection  by  any  layman  after  conviction.f 

Thus  the  Calixtin  Church  kept  as  close  as  possible  to  the  old 

*  iEgid.  Carlerii  Lib.  de  Legation.  (Mon.  Cone.  Gen.  Ssec.  XV.  T.  I.  p.  389). 
— Epistt.  Ixvi.  Ixvii.  (Jo.  Hus  Monument.  L  82-4). — Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  (Lude- 
wig  VI.  175-81). 

t  Conciliab.  Pragens.  ann.  1421  (Hartzheim  V.  199-201).  Cf.  Johann.  de 
Przibram  Profess.  Cath.  Fidei  (Cochlsei  Hist.  Hussit.  pp.  501  sqq.). 


CALIXTINS.  521 

lines.  It  accepted  all  Catholic  dogmas,  even  the  power  of  the 
keys  in  sacramental  penance,  and  only  was  a  protest  and  revolt 
against  the  abuses  which  had  grown  out  of  the  worldly  aspira- 
tions of  the  clergy.  It  was  a  Puritan  reform,  and  it  founded  a 
Puritan  society.  When,  after  the  reconciliation  effected  at  Basle, 
on  the  basis  of  the  four  articles,  Sigismund,  in  1436,  held  his  court 
in  Prague,  the  Bohemians  speedily  complained  that  the  city  was 
becoming  a  Sodom  with  dicing,  tavern-haunting,  and  public  women. 
It  must  have  sounded  strange  to  them  to  be  coolly  told  by  a  Chris- 
tian prelate,  the  Bishop  of  Coutances,  who  was  the  legate  of  the 
council  empowered  to  enforce  the  settlement,  that  it  would  be 
well  if  public  sins  could  be  eradicated,  but  that  strumpets  must 
be  tolerated  to  prevent  greater  evils.* 

The  Cahxtins  thus  sought  to  keep  themselves  strictly  within 
the  pale  of  orthodoxy,  and  deemed  themselves  greatly  injured  and 
insulted  by  the  appellation  of  heretic.  After  the  reconciliation  of 
1436  one  of  their  most  constant  causes  of  complaint  was  that  they 
were  still  stigmatized  as  heretics,  and  that  the  Council  of  Basle 
would  not  issue  letters  proclaiming  to  Christendom  that  they  were 
regarded  as  faithful  sons  of  the  Church.  In  1464,  after  successive 
popes  had  repeatedly  refused  to  ratify  the  pacification  of  Basle 
and  had  excommunicated  as  hardened  heretics  George  Podiebrad 
and  all  who  acknowledged  him  as  king,  when  George  sent  an  em- 
bassy to  Louis  XL  of  France,  Kostka  of  Postubitz,  the  envoy,  and 
his  attendants  were  more  than  once  surprised  and  annoyed  to  find 
that  the  people  of  the  towns  through  which  they  passed  Avere  dis- 
posed to  regard  them  as  heretics.  The  position  of  the  Bohemian 
Calixtins  was  an  anomalous  one  which  has  no  parallel  in  the  his- 
tory  of  mediseval  Christendom.f 


•  Jo.  de  Turonis  Regestrum  (Mon.  Cone.  Gen.  Sseo.  XV.  T.  I.  p.  833, 
858). 

Yet  these  Puritans  were  represented  to  Europe  in  the  papal  bulls  for  the 
crusades  as  not  only  subverting  all  political  and  social  order,  hut  as  condemn- 
ing marriage  and  abandoning  tlieniselves  to  all  manner  of  license  and  bestiality. 
— Martini  PP.  V.  Bull.  Permisit  Deus,  25  Oct.  1427  (Fascic.  Rer.  Expetendarum 
et  Fugiend,  II.  613). 

t  Jo.  de  Turonis  Regestrum  (Mon.  Cone.  Gen.  Sac.  XV.  T.  I.  pp.  843,  858, 
865). — Wratislaw,  Diary  of  an  Embassy  from  George  of  Bohemia,  London, 
1871. 


522  THE  HUSSITES. 

In  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  excitement  which  stirred  Bo- 
hemia to  the  depths,  it  was  impossible  that  all  earnest  souls  should 
thus  pause  on  the  threshold.     The  old  Waldensian  heretics,  who 
had  hailed  the  progress  of  Wickliffite  and  Hussite  doctrines,  would 
naturally  seek  to  prevent  the  arrested  development  of  the  Calix- 
tins  from  prevailing,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  there  were  plenty  of 
zealots  who  were  ready  to  throw  aside  all  the  theology  of  sacer- 
dotalism.    Under    the    energetic    leadership    of    Ziska,    Coranda, 
Nicholas  of  Pilgram,  and  other  resolute  men,  the  progressive  ele- 
ments were  rapidly  moulded  into  a  powerful  party,  which  after 
sloughing    off    impracticable    enthusiasts    presented    itself    with    a 
definite  creed  and  purpose,  and  became  known  as  the  Taborites. 
Of  late  years  there  has  been  an  active  controversy  as  to  whether 
the  Waldenses  were  the  teachers  or  the  disciples  of  the  Taborites. 
Without  denying  that  the  fearless  vigor  of  the  latter  lent  added 
strength  to  the  development  of  the  former,   I  cannot  but  think 
that  the  secret  Waldensianism  of  Bohemia  had  much  to  do  both 
with  the  revolt  of  Huss  and  with  the  carrjing-out  of  that  revolt 
to  its  logical  consequences.     Certain  it  is  that  there  were  close  and 
friendly  relations  between  Waldensian  and  Taborite,  while  the  very 
name  of  the  former  was  regarded  by  all  other  Bohemians  as  a  term 
of  reproach — in  fact  there  was  so  much  in  common  between  Wick- 
liffite and  Waldensian  doctrine  that  this  could  scarce  be  otherwise. 
I  have  aheady  alluded  to  the  contributions  made  to  the  Hussites 
in   1432   by   the   Waldensian   churches   of   Dauphine,   and   to  the 
virtual  coalescence   of  Hussitism   and   Waldensianism   throughout 
Germany.    ^^Tien  Procopius  the  Great,  in  1433,  was  taking  leave 
of  the  Council  of  Basle,  he  had  the  hardihood  to  inject  into  his 
address  a  good  word  for  the  Waldenses,  saying  that  he  had  heard 
them  well  spoken  of  for  chastity,  modesty,  and  similar  virtues. 
Persecution  in  1430  so  thinned  them  out  that  they  had   neither 
bishop  nor  priests;   Nicholas  of  Pilgram,  the  Taborite  bishop,  had 
enjoyed  consecration  in  the  Roman  Church,  and  thus  had  the  right 
to  transmit  the  apostolic  succession,  and  he,  in  1433,  in  Prague 
consecrated  for  the  Waldenses  as  bishops  two  of  their  number, 
Frederic   the   German,    and   John   the    Italian.     When,    in    1451, 
iEneas  Sylvius  passed  a  night  in  Mount  Tabor,  and  wrote  a  pic- 
turesque  description   of  what   he   observed,  he  states  that  while 
all    heresies   had    a   refuge    there,    the    Waldenses    were    held    in 


TABORITES.  523 

chief   honor   as  the   vicars   of   Christ   and   enemies   of   the  Holy 
See.* 

When  the  CaHxtins,  in  1421,  defined  their  position,  the  Tabor- 
ites  did  the  same.  Various  special  Waldensian  errors  were  attract- 
ing attention  and  obtaining  currency  among  the  people — the  denial 
of  purgatory,  the  vitiation  of  the  sacrament  in  sinful  hands,  the 
absolute  rejection  of  the  death-punishment  and  of  the  oath — show- 
ing the  influences  at  work.  The  position  assumed  by  the  Taborites 
was  so  strikingly  similar  to  the  beliefs  ascribed  in  1395  to  the 
Waldenses  in  Austria  by  the  Celestinian  inquisitor,  Peter,  that 
it  is  impossible  not  to  recognize  the  connection  between  them. 
While  the  Taborites  accepted  the  four  articles  of  the  Calixtins 
they  reduced  the  Church  to  a  state  of  the  utmost  apostolic  sim- 
plicity. Tradition  was  wholly  thrown  aside ;  all  images  were  to 
be  burned;  there  was  no  outward  sign  of  distinction  between  lay- 
man and  priest,  the  latter  wearing  beards,  rejecting  the  tonsure, 
and  using  ordinary  garments;  all  priests,  moreover,  were  bishops, 
and  could  perform  the  rite  of  consecration ;  they  baptized  in  run- 
ning water,  without  the  chrism,  celebrated  mass  anywhere,  recit- 
ing the  simple  words  of  consecration  and  the  Paternoster  in  a 
loud  voice  and  in  the  vernacular,  administering  the  body  in  frag- 
ments of  bread  and  the  blood  in  any  vessel  which  might  be  handy ; 
all  consecrations  of  sacred  vessels,  oil,  and  water  was  forbidden ; 
purgatory,  which  Huss  had  accepted,  was  denied,  and  to  manifest 
their  contempt  for  the  suffrages  of  the  saints  they  ate  more  than 
usual  on  fast-days  and  saints'-days ;  auricular  confession  was  de- 
rided— for  venial  sins  confession  to  God  sufficed,  for  mortal  ones, 
public  confession  before  the  brethren,  when  the  priest  would 
assign  a  penalty  commensurate  with  the  offence.  At  the  same 
time  the  rude  and  uncultured  vigor  of  the  Taborites  led  them  to 
regard  all  human  learning  as  a  snare.  Those  who  studied  the 
liberal  arts  were  regarded  as  heathen  and  as  sinning  against  the 
Gospel,  and  all  wTitings  of  the  doctors,  save  what  were  expressly 
contained  in  the  Bible,  were  to  be  destroyed. f 


*  Mn.  Sylvii  Hist.  Bohem.  c.  35 ;  Ejusd.  Epist.  130  (0pp.  Ed.  1571,  p.  678).— 
Pet.  Zatecens.  Lib.  Diurnus  (Monument.  Cone.  Gen.  Sacc.  XV.  T.  I.  p.  352). — Con- 
di. Bituricens.  ann.  1432  (Harduin.  VIII.  1459). — Goll,  Quellen  u.  Untersuchungen 
zur  Geschichte  der  Bohmischen  Brixder,  I.  106. 

t  Goll,  Quellen  u.  Untersuchungen,  II.  40-1. — Prcger,  Beitrage  zur  Geschichte 


524  THE    HUSSITES. 

What  were  their  views  with  respect  to  the  Lord's  Supper  can- 
not be  stated  with  precision.  Laurence  of  Brezowa,  a  Calixtin 
bitterly  hostile  to  them,  says  that  they  consecrated  the  elements 
in  a  loud  voice  and  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  that  the  people  might  be 
assured  that  they  were  receiving  the  real  body  and  the  real  blood, 
which  infers  belief  in  transubstantiation.  In  1431  Procopius  the 
Great  and  other  leaders  of  the  Taborites  issued  a  proclamation 
defining  their  position,  in  which  they  asserted  their  disbelief  in 
purgatory,  in  the  intercessory  power  of  the  Virgin  and  saints,  in 
masses  for  the  dead,  in  absolution  through  indulgences,  etc.,  but 
said  nothing  against  transubstantiation.  When,  in  1436,  the  leg- 
ates of  the  Council  of  Basle  complained  of  the  non-observance  of 
the  Compactata,  one  of  their  grievances  was  that  Bohemia  still 
sheltered  Wickliifites  who  beheved  in  the  remanence  of  the  sub- 
stance of  the  bread,  but  they  said  nothing  about  the  existence  of 
any  worse  form  of  belief.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Taborite  Bishop, 
Nicholas  of  Pilgram,  strongly  asserted  that  Christ  was  only  pres- 
ent spiritually,  that  no  veneration  was  due  to  the  consecrated 
elements,  and  that  there  was  less  idolatry  in  those  who  of  old 
adored  moles  and  bats  and  snakes  than  in  Christians  who  wor- 
shipped the  host,  for  those  things  at  least  had  life.  During  the 
negotiations,  in  January,  1433,  the  legates  of  the  council  presented 
a  series  of  twenty-eight  articles,  attributed  to  the  Bohemians,  and 
asked  for  definite  answers,  yea  or  nay.  One  of  these  was  a  denial 
of  transubstantiation,  and  the  Bohemians  could  never  be  induced 
to  make  the  desired  reply.  Peter  Chelcicky  reproached  the  Ta- 
borites with  conceahng  their  belief  on  the  subject,  but  it  is  probable 
that  there  was  no  absolute  accord  among  them.  The  Chihast 
leaven  doubtless  spread  the  denial  of  transubstantiation ;  others 
probably  adopted  the  Wickliffite  doctrine  of  remanence ;  others 
again  may  have  preserved  the  orthodox  faith,  and  all  resented 
the  appellation  of  Pikards,  with  which  the  Bohemians  designated 
those  who  disbelieved  in  the  absolute  conversion  of  the  elements. 
Certain  it  is  that  the  question  did  not  come  up  with  any  prominence 

der  Waldesier,  pp.  68-71.— Laur.  Byzyn.  Diar.  (Ludewig  VI.  183-4,  194-202).— 
Johann.  de  Przibram  Profess.  Fidei  (Cochlsei  Hist.  Huss.  p.  507).— Huss,  Senno 
de  Exequiis  (Monument.  II.  50). 

See  also  ^neas  Sylvius's  statement  of  the  identity  between  the  Waldensian 
and  Hussite  teachings  (Hist.  Bohem.  c.  35). 


GROWTH    OF    HUSSITISM.  526 

in  the  negotiations  with  the  Council  of  Basle ;  and  in  the  descrip- 
tion which  ^neas  Sylvius  gives,  in  1451,  of  the  Taborites  of  Mount 
Tabor  he  simply  says  that  some  of  them  are  so  foolish  that  they 
hold  the  doctrine  of  Berenger,  that  the  body  of  Christ  is  only  fig- 
uratively in  the  sacrament.* 

It  was  impossible  that  harmony  could  be  preserved  between 
Taborite  and  Calixtin  when  there  was  so  marked  a  divergence  of 
religious  conviction.  They  quarrelled  and  held  conferences  and 
persecuted  each  other,  but  they  presented  a  united  front  to  the 
levies  of  crusaders  which  Europe  repeatedly  sent  against  them, 
and  Sigismund's  hope  of  reconquering  the  throne  of  his  fathers 
grew  more  and  more  remote.  The  death  of  Ziska,  in  1424,  made 
httle  difference,  save  that  his  immediate  followers  organized  them- 
selves into  a  separate  party  under  the  name  of  Orphans,  but  con- 
tinued in  all  things  to  co-operate  with  the  Taborites.  He  was 
succeeded  in  the  leadership  by  the  warrior-priest  Procopius  Rasa, 
or  the  Great,  whose  militar}^  skill  continued  to  hold  banded  Europe 
at  bay.  Hussitism,  moreover,  was  spreading  into  the  neighboring 
lands,  especially  to  the  south  and  east,  requiring,  as  we  shall  see 
hereafter,  the  strenuous  efforts  of  the  Inquisition  to  eradicate  it 
from  Hungary  and  the  Danubian  provinces.  In  Poland  its  mis- 
sionary efforts  called  forth  an  edict  from  King  Ladislas  Y.,  April  6, 
1424,  ordering  aU  his  subjects  to  join  in  exterminating  heretics ; 
every  Pole  who  returned  from  a  sojourn  in  Bohemia  was  subjected 
to  examination  by  the  inquisitors  or  episcopal  officials,  and  all  who 
should  not  return  by  June  1  were  declared  heretics,  their  estates 
confiscated,  and  their  children  subjected  to  the  customary  disabil- 


*  Laur.  Byzyn.  (loc.  cit.  p.  195).— Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VIII.  19-27,  249-51, 
596-99.— Jo.  de  Turonis  Regest.  (Mon.  Cone.  Gen.  Soec.  XV.  T.  I.  p.  842,  846).— 
Jo.  de  Ragusio  Tractatus  (Ibid.  T.  I.  pp.  272-4,  278,  285).— GoU,  Quellen,  II.  17- 
18,  61-4.— ^n.  Sylvii  Epist.  130  (Ed.  1571,  p.  661). 

Even  Rokyzana,  in  1436,  was  with  great  difficulty  forced  to  express  his  dis- 
belief in  the  remanence  of  the  substance  of  the  bread. — Jo.  de  Turonis  Regest. 
(loc.  cit.  pp.  426-7).  Yet  nothing  can  exceed  the  strength  of  his  affirmation  of 
the  existence  of  the  body  and  blood,  in  his  Tractatus  de  Septem  Sacramentis 
(Cochlsei  Hist.  Hussit.  pp.  473-4).  In  view  of  the  exaggerated  superstitious 
adoration  of  the  Eucharist  by  the  Calixtins,  the  assertion  of  Cardinal  Giuliano, 
in  1431,  that  the  Hussites  were  wont  to  manifest  their  contempt  for  it  by  tramp- 
ling it  in  the  blood  of  the  slain,  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  stories  invented  to 
fltimulate  popular  abhorrence  (Cochlsei  op.  cit.  p.  240). 


526  THE    HUSSITES. 

ities.*  The  Church  was  completely  baffled.  It  had  triumphed  over 
a  similar  revolt  in  Languedoc,  and  had  shown  the  world,  in  charac- 
ters of  blood  and  fire,  how  it  utilized  its  triumphs.  It  now  had  a 
different  problem  to  solve.  Force  having  failed,  it  was  obliged  to 
discover  some  formula  of  reconciliation  which  should  not  too  near- 
ly peril  its  claim  to  infallibility. 

To  do  it  justice,  it  did  not  yield  without  compulsion.  Tired  of 
standing  on  the  defensive  against  assaults  whose  repetition  seemed 
endless,  Procopius,  in  1427,  adopted  the  policy  of  aggression.  He 
would  win  peace  by  making  the  coterminous  states  feel  the  miser- 
ies of  war,  and  in  a  series  of  relentlessly  destructive  raids,  con- 
tinued till  1432,  he  carried  desolation  into  all  the  surrounding 
provinces.  Thus  in  a  foray  of  1429,  which  cut  a  swath  through 
Franconia,  Saxony,  and  the  Yogtland,  over  a  hundred  castles  and 
fortified  towns  were  captured,  and  an  immense  booty  was  carried 
back  to  Bohemia.  Misnia,  Lusatia,  Silesia,  Bavaria,  Austria,  and 
Hungary  in  turn  felt  the  weight  of  the  Hussite  sword,  while  the 
prompt  retirement  of  the  invaders  in  every  case  showed  that  re- 
taliation and  not  conquest  was  their  object.  It  was  no  wonder 
that  a  general  cry  for  peace  went  up  among  those  who  bore  the 
brunt  of  the  effort  to  reassert  the  papal  supremacy. f 

Meanwhile  the  Church  was  perplexed  with  another  yet  more 
vexatious  question.  Christendom  never  ceased  to  clamor  for  the 
reform  of  which  it  had  been  cheated  at  Constance.  Skilful  pro- 
crastination had  wearied  the  reforming  fathers,  and  they  had  con- 
sented, in  1418,  to  the  dissolution  of  the  council,  hoping  that  the 
promises  made  in  the  election  of  Martin  V.  would  be  fulfilled. 
They  took  the  precaution,  however,  to  provide  for  an  endless 
series  of  councils,  which  might  be  expected  to  resume  and  com- 
plete their  unfinished  work,  and  the  plan  which  they  laid  out 
shows  how  deep-seated  was  the  distrust  entertained  of  the  papacy. 
Another  general  council  was  ordered  to  be  held  in  five  years,  then 


*  Herburt.  de  Fulstin  Statut.  Regni  Poloniae,  Samoscii,  1597,  p.  191. 
t  Balbin.  Epit.  Rer.  Hung.  pp.  475-6.— Sommersberg  Silesiac.  Rer,  Scriptt.  L 
75. — A  popular  rhyme  of  the  period  described : 

"  Meissen  und  Sachsen  verderbt,  Oesterreich  verhergt, 

Schliesien  und  Laussnitz  zerscherbt,  Mahren  verzerht, 

Bayern  aussgenehrt,  Boheimb  umbgekehrt." 

(Balbin.  p.  478.) 


POSITION  OF  THE  CHURCH.  527 

one  in  seven  years  thereafter,  and  finally  a  perpetual  succession 
at  intervals  of  ten  years,  with  careful  provisions  to  nullify  the  ex- 
pected evasions  of  the  popes.* 

As  far  as  relates  to  Germany,  Martin  endeavored  to  perform 
the  two  duties  for  which  he  had  been  elected — the  suppression  of 
heresy  and  the  reformation  of  the  Church — by  sending,  in  1422, 
Cardinal  Branda  thither  as  legate.  To  accomplish  the  former  ob- 
ject the  legate  was  directed  to  preach  another  crusade,  that  of 
1421  having  ended  so  disastrousl3^  As  regards  the  latter  feature 
of  his  mission,  the  papal  commission  and  the  decree  issued  in  con- 
formity with  it  by  Branda  describe  the  vices  of  the  German  clergy 
in  terms  quite  as  severe  as  those  employed  by  Huss  and  his  fol- 
lowers, and  furnish  a  complete  justification  of  the  Bohemian  re- 
volt. The  only  wonder  is  that  pope  or  kaiser  could  expect  the 
populations  to  rest  satisfied  with  the  ministrations  of  men  who 
assumed  to  be  gifted  with  supernatural  power  and  to  speak  in  the 
name  of  the  Redeemer,  while  steeped  to  the  lips  in  every  form 
of  greed,  uncleanness,  and  lust.  The  constitution  which  Branda 
issued  to  cure  these  evils  only  prescribed  a  repetition  of  remedies 
which  had  vainly  been  applied  for  centuries.  It  simply  attacked  the 
symptoms  and  not  the  cause  of  the  disease,  and  it  consequently 
remained  inoperative. f 

Five  years  had  elapsed  since  the  ending  of  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance. Nothing  had  been  accomplished  to  suppress  heresy  or 
reform  the  Church,  and  when  in  due  time  the  Council  of  Siena 
assembled,  in  1423,  it  remained  to  be  seen  whether  the  unfinished 
work  of  Constance  could  be  completed.  Under  the  presidency  of 
four  papal  legates  it  was  held  that  the  attendance  of  prelates  and 
princes  was  too  small  to  permit  the  work  of  reformation  to  be 
undertaken,  but  it  was  sufficient  to  justify  the  council  in  confirm- 
ing the  promises  made  by  Martin  of  forgiveness  of  sins  for  all  wlio 
should  assist  in  exterminating  the  heretics.  All  Christian  princes 
were  summoned  to  lend  their  aid  in  the  good  work  without  delay 
if  they  wished  to  escape  divine  vengeance  and  the  penalties  pro- 
vided by  law.  All  commerce  of  every  kind  with  the  heretics  was 
forbidden,  especially  in  victuals,  cloth,  arms,  gunpowder,  and  lead ; 
every  one  trading  with  them,  or  any  prince  permitting  communi- 

*  C.  Constant.  Deer.  Frequens  (Von  der  Hardt  IV.  1435). 
t  Ludewig  Reliq.  MSS.  XI.  385,  409. 


628  THE   HUSSITES. 

cation  with  them  over  his  lands  was  pronounced  subject  to  the 
punishments  decreed  against  heresy.  Bohemia  was  to  be  isolated 
and  starved  into  submission  by  a  material  blockade  enforced  by 
spiritual  censures.* 

As  for  reformation,  it  was  found  that  all  efforts  seriously  to 
consider  it  were  skilfully  blocked  by  the  legates.  This  is  not  sur- 
prising, as  the  Church  was  to  be  reformed  in  its  head  as  well  as 
in  its  members,  and  the  head  was  recognized  as  the  chief  source 
of  infection.  A  project  presented  by  the  Galilean  deputies  de- 
scribed in  indignant  bitterness  the  abuses  of  the  curia — the  sale  of 
preferments  and  dignities  to  the  highest  bidder,  irrespective  of 
fitness,  with  the  consequent  destruction  of  benefices  and  plunder 
of  the  people ;  the  papal  dispensations  which  enabled  the  most 
incongruous  pluralities  to  be  held  by  individuals,  and  the  other 
devices  whereby  Kome  was  enriched  at  the  cost  of  religion ;  the 
centralizing  of  all  jurisdiction  in  Rome  to  the  spoliation  of  the  in- 
digent who  dwelt  at  a  distance ;  the  papal  decrees  which  set  aside 
the  salutary  regulations  of  general  councils — showing  how  nuga- 
tory had  been  the  reformatory  regulations  w^herewith  Martin, 
when  elected,  had  parried  the  attacks  of  the  Council  of  Constance. 
The  disappointment  of  the  Council  of  Siena  at  the  bafiiing  of  its 
efforts  was  leading  to  a  tension  of  feeling  that  grew  dangerous. 
A  French  friar,  Guillaume  Joselme,  preached  a  sermon  in  which 
he  demonstrated  that  the  pope  was  the  servant  and  not  the  mas- 
ter of  the  Church.  The  legates  denounced  him  as  a  heretic,  and 
ordered  the  magistrates  of  Siena  to  arrest  him,  but  they,  unlike 
Sigismund,  replied  that  they  had  given  a  safe-conduct  to  all  the 
members  of  the  council,  and  could  not  go  behind  it.  Finally,  find- 
ing that  under  the  control  of  the  papacy  no  reformatory  action 
was  possible,  the  attempt  was  made  to  shorten  to  two  or  three 
years  the  seven  years'  interval  that  was  to  elapse  before  the  next 
council.  All  the  several  nations  had  agreed  to  it  when  its  enact- 
ment was  prevented  by  the  legates  suddenly  dissolving  the  coun- 
cil, March  8, 1424,  in  spite  of  a  protest  intimating  very  plainly  that 
they  had  prevented  all  reformatory  legislation.  The  seven  years' 
interval  was  preserved,  and  the  next  council  was  indicated  for 
Basle,  in  1431.     The  reformers  consoled  themselves  by  pointing 

*  Concil.  Senens.  ann.  1433  (Harduin.  VIII.  1015). 


THE    COUNCIL    OP   BASLE    CONVOKED.  529 

out  that,  of  the  four  papal  representatives  concerned  in  thus  stran- 
gling the  council,  three  died  within  a  year,  of  terrible  deaths,  man- 
ifestly the  divine  vengeance  on  their  wickedness.  Martin  made  a 
show  of  supplementing  this  lack  of  performance  by  appointing  a 
commission  of  three  cardinals  to  carry  on  the  work  of  reform,  and 
requested  all  complaints  and  suggestions  to  be  sent  to  them — a 
measure  which  was  as  profitless  in  result  as  it  was  intended  to  be. 
Equally  illusory  was  a  constitution  issued  shortly  after,  restraining 
the  ostentation  and  extravagance  of  the  cardinals,  and  prohibiting 
them  from  assuming  the  "  protection  "  of  any  prince  or  potentate, 
or  asking  favors  except  for  the  poor  or  for  their  own  retainers 
and  kindred,  thus  reducing  the  importance  of  the  Sacred  College 
as  a  factor  of  the  Holy  See  and  exalting  his  own.* 

The  time  fixed  for  the  assembling  of  the  Council  of  Basle, 
March,  1431,  was  rapidly  drawing  nigh  without  any  action  on  the 
part  of  Martin  looking  to  its  convocation.  He  who  owed  his 
election  to  a  general  council  was  notorious  for  abhorring  the  very 
name  of  council.  At  length,  on  November  8,  1430,  there  ap- 
peared on  the  doors  of  the  papal  palace,  and  in  the  most  conspicu- 
ous places  in  Rome,  an  anonymous  notice,  purporting  to  be  issued 
by  two  Christian  kings,  reciting  the  necessity  of  holding  a  council 
in  obedience  to  the  decrees  of  Constance,  and  appending  some  con- 
clusions of  a  threatening  character,  to  the  effect  that  if  the  pope 
and  cardinals  impede  it,  or  even  evade  promoting  it,  they  are  to 
be  held  as  fautors  of  heresy ;  that  if  the  pope  does  not  open  the 
council  himself  or  by  his  deputies,  those  who  may  be  present  Avill 
be  compelled  by  divine  law  to  withdraw  obedience  from  him,  and 
Christendom  will  be  bound  to  obey  them,  and  that  they  wiU  be 
forced  to  proceed  summarily  to  his  deposition  and  that  of  the  car- 
dinals as  fautors  of  heresy.  It  was  evident  that  Christendom  was 
determined  to  have  the  council,  with  the  pope  or  without  him, 
and  Martin,  after  holding  out  tiU  the  last  moment,  was  compelled 
to  yield.  He  had  appointed,  January  11, 1431,  Cardinal  Giuliano 
Cesarini  as  legate  to  preach  another  crusade  with  plenary  indul- 

*  Jo.  de  Ragusio  Init.  et  Prosec.  Cone.  Basil.  (Mon.  Cone.  Gen.  Ssec.  XV.  T. 
I.  pp.  28-30,  32-35,  53-61,  64).— Concil.  Senens.  (Harduiu.  VIIL  1025-6).— Act. 
Cone.  Basil.  (Harduin.  VIII.  1108-10).— Raynald.  ann.  1425,  No.  3,  4. 

John  of  Ragusa  was  the  delegate  of  the  University  of  Paris  to  Siena,  and 
subsequently  played  an  active  part  at  Basle. 
II.— 34 


530  THE    HUSSITES. 

gences  against  the  Hussites,  and  to  him  he  issued,  February  1, 
a  commission  to  open  and  preside  at  the  council.  One  of  those 
most  earnest  in  bringing  this  about  was  the  Cardinal  of  Siena. 
Had  he  been  able  to  forecast  the  future  he  would  have  tem.pered 
his  zeal.  Within  three  weeks  Martin  was  dead,  and  on  March  3 
the  Cardinal  of  Siena  was  elected  his  successor,  taking  the  name 
of  Eugenius  IV.* 

Cardinal  Giuliano  went  on  his  double  mission  and  preached  the 
fifth  crusade  against  the  Hussites.  The  Bohemian  forays  had  stim- 
ulated Germany  to  an  earnest  effort  to  crush  the  troublesome  rebels, 
and  he  found  himself  at  the  head  of  an  army  variously  estimated  at 
from  eighty  thousand  to  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  men. 
The  Bohemians  apphed  to  the  Emperor  Sigismund  for  a  safe-con- 
duct to  Basle,  offering  to  submit  the  questions  at  issue  to  debate  on 
the  basis  of  Scripture.  This  was  refused,  and  they  were  told  that 
they  must  agree  to  stand  to  the  decisions  of  the  council  without 
hmitation.  They  preferred  the  arbitrament  of  arms,  and  issued  a 
protest  to  the  Christian  world  in  which,  with  coarse  good  sense, 
they  defined  their  position,  attacked  the  temporal  power  of  the 
papacy,  and  ridiculed  the  indulgences  issued  for  their  subjugation. 
This  document  was  received  by  the  council  on  August  10,  very 
nearly  on  the  day  on  which,  at  Taas,  the  crusaders  fled  without 
striking  a  blow,  on  hearing  the  battle-hymn  of  the  dreaded  Hussite 
troops.  As  a  military  leader  Cardinal  Giuliano  was  evidently  a  fail- 
ure, and  it  only  remained  for  him  to  try  peaceful  measures.  The 
German  princes,  alarmed  and  exhausted,  showed  evident  signs  of 
determination  to  come  to  terms  with  their  unconquerable  neigh- 
bors. It  was  a  hard  necessity,  but  there  was  no  alternative,  and 
on  October  15  the  council  resolved  to  invite  the  Bohemians  to  a 


*  Jo.  de  Ragusio  Init.  etc.  (Mon.  Con.  Gen.  Saec.  XV.  T.  I.  pp.  66-7). — 
Cochlsei  Hist.  Hussit.  pp.  237-9. 

The  repulsion  of  the  papacy  for  general  councils  was  not  unnatural.  On 
June  3,  1435,  the  Council  of  Basle,  with  virtual  unanimity,  abrogated  the  an- 
nates and  decreed  that  in  future  no  charges  should  be  made  for  sealing  colla- 
tions and  confirmations  of  sees  and  benefices,  except  the  scrivener's  moderate 
fees.  The  Bishops  of  Otranto  and  Padua  protested  in  the  name  of  the  pope, 
and  finding  this  unheeded  arose  and  left  the  council,  followed  by  a  few  others, 
while  the  rest  gave  themselves  up  to  rejoicing  and  thanking  Grod.— jEgid. 
Carlerii  Lib.  de  Legation,  (op.  cit.  I.  568). 


THE    SITUATION    IN    GERMANY.  531 

conference  and  to  give  them  a  safe-conduct,  although  the  letters 
were  not  forwarded  until  November  26.* 

Meanwhile  the  inevitable  quarrels  between  pope  and  council  had 
broken  out  with  bitterness.  But  three  weeks  after  the  invitation 
to  the  Bohemians  had  been  despatched,  on  December  18,  Euge- 
nius  took  the  extreme  step  of  dissolving  the  council  and  calling 
another  to  be  held  in  eighteen  months  at  Bologna,  where  he  would 
preside  in  person.  At  this  action  Germany  was  aghast.  Sigis- 
mund  remonstrated  energetically,  and  the  council,  assured  of  his 
support,  refused  to  obey.  Cardinal  Giuliano  was  won  over  and 
made  himself  its  mouthpiece.  He  had  had  an  opportunity  of  ob- 
serving the  condition  of  men's  minds  north  of  the  Alps,  and  he 
knew  to  what  a  storm  the  bark  of  St.  Peter  would  be  exposed. 
It  may  safely  be  said  that  since  the  papacy  became  dommant  over 
the  Church  few  popes  have  received  from  a  subordinate  so  vigorous 
a  reproof  as  that  in  which  Giuliano  gave  his  reasons  for  disobedi- 
ence, and  it  contains  so  vivid  a  picture  of  the  times  that  a  brief 
abstract  of  it  cannot  well  be  spared.  Clerical  wickedness,  he  says, 
in  Germany  is  such  that  the  lait}^  are  irritated  to  the  last  degree 
against  the  Church,  wherefore  it  is  greatly  to  be  feared  that  if 
there  is  no  reformation  they  will  execute  their  pubhc  threats  of 
rising,  Uke  the  Hussites,  against  the  clergy.  This  turpitude  has 
given  great  audacity  to  the  Bohemians  and  lends  color  to  their 
heresy,  and  if  the  clergy  cannot  be  reformed  the  suppression  of 
this  heresy  would  lead  only  to  the  breaking-out  of  another.  The 
Bohemians  have  been  invited  to  the  council ;  they  have  rephed 
and  are  expected  to  come.  If  the  council  is  dissolved,  what  will 
the  heretics  say?  Will  not  the  Church  confess  herself  defeated 
when  she  dares  not  await  those  whom  she  has  invited?  WiU 
not  the  hand  of  God  be  seen  in  it  ?  A  host  of  warriors  has 
fled  before  them,  and  now  the  Church  universal  flies !  Behold, 
they  cannot  be  overcome  either  by  arms  or  arguments!  Alas 
for  the  wretched  clergy  wherever  they  be!  Will  they  not  be 
deemed  incorrigible  and  determined  to  live  in  their  filth?  So 
many  councils  have  been  held  in  our  days  from  which  no  reforma- 
tion has  come !     From  this  one  the  nations  have  expected  some 


*  Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VIII.  15-18.— Chron.  Concil.  Zantfliet  (Ibid.  V.  425-7).— 
Jo.  de  Ragusio  Tractatus  (Mon.  Cone.  Gen.  Ssec.  XV.  T.  I.  pp.  135,  138). 


632  THE   HUSSITES. 

fruit.  If  it  be  thus  dissolved,  we  shall  be  said  to  laugh  at  God 
and  man,  and  when  there  is  no  hope  of  our  correction  the  laity 
will  justly  assail  us,  like  the  Hussites.  Already  there  are  reports 
of  it,  already  they  begin  to  spit  forth  the  venom  which  is  to  de- 
stroy us.  They  will  think  to  oifer  a  welcome  sacrifice  to  God 
when  they  slay  or  despoil  us,  who  will  then  be  odious  both  to  God 
and  man,  and  whereas  now  there  is  Uttle  respect  for  us,  there  will 
then  be  none.  The  council  was  some  restraint  upon  them,  but 
when  they  lose  all  hope  they  will  persecute  us  publicly,  and  the 
whole  blame  will  be  thrown  upon  the  Roman  curia,  which  breaks 
up  the  assembly  convened  to  effect  reform.  Latterly  the  city  of 
Magdeburg  has  expelled  her  archbishop  and  clergy ;  the  citizens 
march  with  wagons  like  the  Bohemians,  and  are  said  to  have  sent 
for  a  Hussite  captain,  and  they  have,  moreover,  a  league  with 
many  other  communities  of  those  parts.  The  people  of  Passau 
have  driven  out  their  bishop  and  are  besieging  one  of  his  castles. 
Both  cities  are  near  to  Bohemia,  and  if,  as  is  to  be  feared,  they 
unite  they  will  have  a  following  of  many  other  towns.  At  Bam- 
berg there  is  fierce  discord  between  the  citizens  on  the  one  side 
and  the  bishop  and  chapter  on  the  other,  which  is  especially  danger- 
ous by  reason  of  the  neighborhood  of  the  heretics.  If  the  council 
is  dissolved  these  quarrels  will  increase,  and  many  other  com- 
munities will  be  drawn  in.* 

Making  due  allowance  for  inevitable  rhetorical  exaggeration 
this  picture  is  a  true  one.  Hussite  ideas  were  rapidly  spreading 
through  Germany,  and  finding  a  congenial  soil  in  the  aversion 
born  of  incurable  clerical  corruption.  About  this  time  Felix 
Hemmerlin  complains  of  the  countless  souls  seduced  to  heresy  by 
the  emissaries  who,  every  year,  come  from  Bohemia  to  Berne  and 
Soleure.  JS'umerous  executions  of  heretics  are  recorded  at  this 
period  in  Flanders,  where  persecution  had  been  for  centuries  almost 
unknown,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  Hussite  missionaries  were 
busily  carrying  on  an  equally  successful  propaganda  elsewhere. 
If  the  hopes  which  were  built  on  the  council  were  destroyed,  the 

•  Harduin  VHI.  1575-8.— Raynald.  ann.  1431,  No.  26.— Epist.  Card.  Juliani 
(JSn.  Sylv.  0pp.  Ed.  1571,  pp.  66-9). 

The  letter  of  Cardinal  Giuliano  and  ^neas  Sylvius's  Commentaries  on  the 
Council  of  Basle  were  subsequently  put  in  the  Index  Expurgatorius  (Reusch, 
Der  Index  der  verbotenen  Biicher,  I.  40). 


NEGOTIATIONS    WITH    THE    HUSSITES.  533 

Church  might  well  expect  a  general  revolt.  Sustained  by  the 
united  support  of  Cismontane  Christendom,  the  council  resolutely 
went  its  way.  Sigismund  urged  it  to  stand  firm,  and  in  Novem- 
ber, 1432,  he  issued  an  imperial  declaration  that  he  Avould  sustain 
it  against  all  assailants.  Eugenius  held  out  until  February,  1433, 
when  he  assented  to  its  continuance,  but  in  July  he  again  dis- 
solved it,  and  in  September  repeated  the  command.  Then  the 
council  commenced  active  proceedings  to  arraign  and  try  him,  and 
in  December  he  revoked  these  bulls.  In  the  subsequent  quarrel 
the  council  decreed  his  suspension  in  January,  1439,  and  his  deposi- 
tion in  June,  while  the  election  of  Amedeo  of  Savoy  as  Felix  Y. 
was  confirmed  in  November  of  the  same  year.* 

Into  the  details  of  the  interminable  negotiations  which  fol- 
lowed between  the  council  and  the  Hussites  it  is  not  worth  while 
to  enter.  The  latter  carried  their  point,  and,  in  a  conference  held 
at  Eger,  May  18,  1432,  it  was  agreed  that  the  questions  should  be 
debated  on  the  basis  of  the  Scriptures  and  the  writings  of  the  early 
fathers.  The  four  articles  which  were  the  common  ground  of 
Calixtins  and  Taborites  were  put  forward  as  their  demands,  and  to 
these  they  steadily  adhered  through  all  the  dreary  discussions  in 
Basle,  Prague,  Briinn,  Stuhlweissenberg,  to  the  final  conference  of 
Iglau  in  July,  1436.  The  discussions  were  ofttimes  hot  and  angry, 
and  the  good  fathers  of  Basle  were  sometimes  scandalized  at  the 
freedom  of  speech  of  the  Bohemian  delegates.  When  John  of 
Ragusa  alluded  to  the  Hussites  as  heretics,  John  Rokyzana,  one 
of  the  Calixtin  delegates,  indignantly  denied  it,  and  demanded 
that  if  any  one  accused  them  of  heresy  he  should  offer  the  talio 
and  prove  it.  Procopius,  who  represented  the  Taborites,  joined 
in  and  declared  that  he  would  not  have  come  to  Basle  had  he 
known  that  he  would  be  thus  insulted.  Time  and  skill  were  re- 
quired to  pacify  the  Bohemians,  and  John  of  Ragusa  and  the 
Archbishop  of  Lyons  were  forced  to  apologize  formally.  On  an- 
other occasion  the  Inquisitor  Henry  of  Coblentz,  a  Dominican 
doctor,  complained  that  Ulric  of  Znaim,  a  deputy  of  the  Orphans, 
had  said  that  monks  were  introduced  by  the  devil.  Ulric  denied 
it,  and  Procopius  intervened,  saying  that  he  had  remarked  to  the 

•  Hemmerlin  Lollardor.  Descriptio.— Duverger,  La  Vauderie  dans  les  fitats  de 
Philippe  le  Bon,  Arras,  1885,  p.  24.— Harduin.  VIII.  1141,  1172-83,  1263,  1280, 
1582,  1606.— Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VIII.  80-2. 


534  THE  HUSSITES. 

legate  that  if  the  bishops  came  from  the  apostles,  and  priests  from 
the  seventy-two  disciples,  the  others  could  have  had  no  other  source 
but  the  devil.  This  sally  raised  a  general  laugh,  which  was  in- 
creased when  Rokyzana  called  to  the  inquisitor,  "  Doctor,  make 
Dom  Procopius  provincial  of  your  order."  These  trifles  have  their 
significance  when  compared  with  the  shor.ts  of  "  Burn  him  !  Burn 
him  !"  which  assailed  Huss  at  Constance.  In  fact  the  Hussites 
were  urged  to  incorporate  themselves  with  the  council,  but  they 
were  too  shrewd  to  fall  into  the  snare.* 

By  unbending  firmness  the  Bohemians  carried  their  point,  and 
secured  the  recognition  of  the  four  articles,  which  became  cele- 
brated in  history  as  the  Compactata — the  Magna  Charta  of  the 
Bohemian  Church  until  swept  away  by  the  counter-Reformation. 
This  was  agreed  to  in  Prague,  November  26,  1433,  and  confirmed 
by  mutual  clasp  of  hands  between  the  legates  of  the  council  and 
the  deputies  of  the  three  Bohemian  sects,  but  matters  were  by  no 
means  settled.  The  four  articles  were  brief  and  simple  declara- 
tions which  admitted  of  unlimited  diversity  of  construction.  The 
dialecticians  of  the  council  had  no  difficulty  in  explaining  them 
away,  until  they  practically  amounted  to  nothing ;  the  Hussites,  on 
the  other  side,  with  equal  facility,  expanded  them  to  cover  all  that 
they  could  possibly  wish  to  claim.  Hardly  was  the  handclasping 
over  when  it  was  found  that  the  Bohemians  asserted  that  the  per- 
mission of  communion  in  both  elements  meant  that  they  were  to 
continue  to  administer  it  to  infants,  and  to  force  it  proscriptively 
on  every  one — positions  to  which  the  council  could  by  no  means 
assent.  This  will  serve  as  an  illustration  of  the  innumerable  ques- 
tions which  kept  the  negotiators  busy  during  yet  thirty  dreary 
months.  So  far,  indeed,  was  the  matter  as  yet  from  being  settled, 
that,  in  April,  1434,  the  council  levied  a  half -tithe  on  Christendom 
for  a  crusade  against  the  Hussites,  which  enabled  it  to  stimulate 
with  liberal  payments  the  zeal  of  the  Bohemian  Catholic  nobles.f 

*  Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VIII.  131-33.— Pet.  Zatecens.  Lib.  Diurn.  (Mon.  Cone. 
Gen.  S«c.  XV.  T.  I.  p.  304-5,  324,  328-31,  348).— Naucleri  Chron.  ann.  1434. 

tuEgid.  Carlerii  Lib.  de  Legation  (Ibid.  T.  I.  pp.  447-71,495-7).— Martene 
Ampl.  Coll.VIIL  305-40,356-415,  698-704.- Haitzheim  V.  768-9.— Kukuljevic, 
Jura  Regni  Croatiae,  Zagrabiae,  1862,  I.  192.— Batthyani  Legg.  Eccles.  Hung.  III. 
419.  The  question  of  infantile  communion  affords  an  illustration  of  the  skilful 
casuistry  of  the  orthodox.     After  the  reconciliation,  when  Sigismund  was  ruling 


I 


OVERTHROW   OF   THE   TABORITES.  535 

It  is  not  likely  that  any  results  would  have  been  reached  but 
for  events  which  at  first  seemed  to  threaten  the  continuance  of  the 
negotiations.  The  Taborites  could  only  have  consented  to  treat 
on  the  basis,  so  inadequate  to  them,  of  the  four  articles,  in  the  con- 
fidence that  the  practical  application  would  cover  a  vastly  wider 
sphere.  After  the  preliminary  agreement  of  November  26,  the 
construction  assumed  by  the  legates  of  the  council  made  them 
draw  back.  The  affair  was  reaching  a  conclusion,  and  it  was 
necessary  to  have  a  definite  understanding  of  that  to  which  they 
were  binding  themselves.  After  the  departure  of  the  legates  from 
Prague,  in  January,  1434,  hot  discussions  arose  between  them  and 
the  Calixtins  as  to  the  continuance  of  the  negotiations.  There 
were  political  as  well  as  religious  differences  between  them.  The 
Taborites  were  mostly  peasants  and  poor  folk ;  they  wanted  no 
nobles  or  gentlemen  in  their  ranks,  and  seem  to  have  had  repub- 
lican tendencies,  as  they  desired  to  add  to  the  four  articles  two 
others,  providing  for  the  independence  of  Bohemia  and  for  the  re- 
tention of  all  confiscated  property.  Both  parties  became  exasper- 
ated, and  flew  to  arms  for  a  contest  decisive  as  to  their  respective 
mastery.  The  Taborites  had  for  some  time  been  besieging  Pilsen, 
a  city  which  held  out  for  Sigismund.  Learning  that  their  friends 
in  the  Neustadt  of  Prague  had  been  slaughtered  without  distinc- 
tion of  age  or  sex,  to  the  number,  it  is  said,  of  twenty-two  thou- 
sand, they  raised  the  siege.  May  9,  to  take  vengeance  on  the  city, 
but  after  a  demonstration  before  it,  they  withdrew  towards  Mora- 
via. Meanwhile  the  Calixtins  had  formed  an  alliance  with  the 
Catholic  barons,  who  had  been  liberally  subsidized  by  the  council, 
and  followed  them  with  a  formidable  force.  The  shock  came  at 
Lipan,  on  Sunday,  May  30.  All  day  and  night  the  battle  raged, 
and  until  the  third  hour  of  Monday  morning.  When  it  was  over, 
Procopius,  Lupus,  and  thirteen  thousand  of  the  bravest  Taborites 
lay  dead  upon  the  field,  and  the  murderous  nature  of  the  strife  is 
seen  in  the  fact  that  but  seven  hundred  prisoners  were  taken, 
though  we  may  question  the  claim  of  the  victors  that  the  battle 
cost  them  but  two  hundred  men,  and  we  may  hope  that  there  is 


in  Prague,  infantile  communion  was  forbidden  by  the  legate  of  the  council,  on 
the  ground  that  the  Compactata  only  guaranteed  the  privilege  to  those  who  had 
been  accustomed  to  it,  and  that  infants  born  since  then  were  therefore  not  en- 
titled to  it.— Jo.  de  Turonis  Regest.  (Mon.  C.  Gen.  Saec.  XV.  T.  I.  p.  865). 


536  THE    HUSSITES. 

exaggeration  in  the  boast  that  they  burned  several  thousand  of 
those  whom  they  subsequently  captured.  The  power  of  the  Tabor- 
ites  was  utterly  broken.  It  is  true  that  they  continued  to  hold 
Mount  Tabor  until  finally  crushed  by  George  Podiebrad,  in  1452 ; 
and  that  in  the  December  following  the  battle  their  unconquera- 
ble spirit  was  again  contemplating  an  appeal  to  arms,  but  after 
Lipan  they  were  only  a  troublesome  element  of  insubordination, 
and  not  a  factor  in  the  pohtical  situation.  The  congratulatory 
letters  sent  by  some  of  the  victors  to  Sigismund,  and  the  effusive 
joy  with  which  he  communicated  the  news  to  the  council,  show 
that  the  victory  was  one  for  the  Catholics.* 

Even  after  the  virtual  elimination  of  the  Taborites  there  were 
ample  subjects  of  dispute,  and  at  one  time  the  prospect  seemed  so 
unpromismg  that  prehminary  arrangements  were  set  on  foot,  in 
August,  1434,  for  organizing  a  new  crusade  on  the  proceeds  of  the 
half -tithe  levied  shortly  before.  One  source  of  endless  trouble 
sprang  from  the  personal  ambition  of  Rokyzana.  Learned,  able, 
a  hardy  disputant,  and  a  skilled  man  of  affairs,  he  had  determined 
to  be  Archbishop  of  Prague,  and  this  object  he  pursued  with  un- 
alterable constancy.  He  bore  a  leading  part  in  the  negotiations, 
and  made  himself  as  conspicuous  as  possible,  shifting  his  ground 
with  dexterity,  interposing  objections  and  smoothing  them  as  the 
interest  of  the  moment  might  dictate.  At  first  he  endeavored  to 
have  a  clause  inserted  that  the  people  and  the  clergy  should  be 
empowered  to  elect  an  archbishop,  who  should  be  acknowledged 
and  confirmed  by  the  emperor  and  the  pope.  This  being  rejected, 
he  procured  of  Sigismund  a  secret  agreement  that  the  election 


»  Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VHI.  710-19.— Harduin.  VHI.  1604,  1650-2.— ^gid. 
Carlerii  Liber  de  Legationibus  (Mon.  Cone.  Gen.  Saec.  XV.  T.  I.  pp.  522,  529-39, 
544).— Raynald.  ann.  1435,  No.  22-3.— Naucleri  Chron.  ann.  1434. 

The  democratic  insubordination  characteristic  of  the  Taborites  is  seen  in  an 
incident  occurring  in  September,  1433.  Procopius  sent  a  detachment  to  invade 
Bavaria,  and  appointed  as  leader  a  captain  named  Pardus.  The  men  mutinied 
before  setting  out,  and,  on  Procopius  interposing,  one  of  them  felled  him  to  the 
ground  -with  a  blow  on  the  head  with  a  stool.  The  man  who  struck  him  was 
elected  leader,  and  under  his  guidance  the  Taborites  lost  two  thousand  of  their 
best  veterans.— .lEgid.  Carlerii  1.  c.  pp.  466-7. 

The  reduction  to  serfdom  of  the  Bohemian  peasantry,  in  1487,  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  final  result  of  the  overthrow  of  the  Taborites. 


ROKYZANA'S    AMBITION.  537 

should  be  held,  and  that  the  emperor  would  do  all  in  his  power 
to  secure  the  confirmation  by  the  pope,  without  cost  for  pallium, 
confirmation,  or  notarial  fees.  Although  this,  when  discovered, 
was  protested  against  by  the  legates  of  the  council  and  refused 
by  the  council  itself,  he  proceeded,  in  1435,  to  obtain  an  election 
by  the  national  assembly  of  Bohemia,  to  the  great  disgust  of  the 
orthodox,  who  reasonably  dreaded  this  example  of  a  return  of  the 
primitive  methods  of  selecting  prelates.  Again  Sigismund  secretly 
accepted  this,  while  the  legates  declared  it  to  be  invalid,  and  that, 
as  an  infraction  of  the  Compactata,  it  must  be  annulled.  On  this 
question  the  whole  negotiation  was  nearly  wrecked,  and  it  was 
only  settled  by  Sigismund  and  his  son-in-law  and  heir,  Albert  of 
Austria,  promising  to  issue  letters  recognizing  Rokyzana  as  arch- 
bishop, and  to  compel  obedience  to  him  as  such.  After  this  it  re- 
quired but  a  fortnight  more  of  quarrelling  to  bring  the  matter  to 
a  termination,  and  signatures  to  the  Compactata  were  duly  ex- 
changed July  5, 1436,  amid  general  rejoicings.  Sigismund,  restored 
to  the  throne  of  his  fathers,  made  a  show  of  complying  with  his 
promise,  by  writing  to  the  council  a  letter  asking  Rokyzana's  con- 
firmation, at  the  same  time  explaining  to  the  legates  that  he  con- 
sidered the  council  ought  to  refuse,  but  that  he  did  not  wish  to 
break  with  his  new  subjects  too  suddenly.  Of  course  the  confir- 
mation never  came,  and  although  Rokyzana  called  God  to  witness 
that  he  did  not  wish  the  archbishopric,  the  policy  of  his  long  life 
was  devoted  to  obtaining  it.  With  all  convenient  speed  Sigismund 
forgot  the  pledge  to  enforce  obedience  to  him.  His  position  became 
so  dangerous  that  he  secretly  fled  from  Prague,  June  16, 1437,  and 
remained  in  exile  until  after  the  deaths  of  Sigismund  and  Albert, 
when  he  returned  in  1440,  and  speedily  became  the  most  powerful 
man  in  Bohemia.  This  position  he  retained  until  his  death,  in 
1471,  administering  the  archbishopric,  constantly  seeking  confir- 
mation at  the  hands  of  successive  popes,  and  subordinating  the 
policy  of  the  kingdom,  internal  and  external,  so  far  as  he  dared, 
to  that  object — not  the  least  anomalous  feature  of  the  anomalous 
Calixtin  Church.*     

*  Marten e  Ampl.  Coll.  VIII.  354-6.  —  ^gid.  Carlerii  Lib.  de  Legationibus 
(Mon.  Cone.  Gen.  Saec.  XV.  T.  I.  pp.  368-9, 516-17,  519,  595,  597,  600,  632-4,  662-4, 
674-6,  678,  684-6,  688).— Tb.  Ebendorfcri  Diar.  (lb.  pp.  767-9, 776-0, 78^-3).— Jo. 
de  Turonis  Regest.  (lb.  834-5,  837-8,  848,  868). 


538  THE   HUSSITES. 

A  peace  in  which  all  parties  distrusted  each  other  and  placed 
radically  different  interpretations  on  its  conditions  was  not  likely 
to  heal  dissensions  so  profound.  The  very  day  after  the  solemn 
ratification  of  the  Compactata  an  ominous  disturbance  showed 
how  superficial  was  the  reconciliation.  In  the  presence  of  an  im- 
mense crowd,  at  the  high  altar  of  the  church  of  Iglau,  where  the 
final  conferences  were  held,  the  Bishop  of  Coutances,  chief  of  the 
legation  of  the  council,  celebrated  mass  and  returned  thanks  to 
God.  After  this  the  letters  of  agreement  were  read  in  Bohemian, 
and  Rokyzana  commented  upon  them  in  the  same  language,  much 
to  the  discomfort  of  the  legates.  He  had  been  celebrating  mass 
at  a  side  altar,  and  when  the  reading  was  finished  he  called  out, 
"  If  any  one  wishes  communion  in  both  elements  let  him  come  to 
this  altar  and  it  wiU  be  given  to  him."  The  legates  rushed  over 
to  him  and  twice  forbade  him,  but  he  quietly  disregarded  them 
and  administered  the  sacrament  to  eight  or  ten  persons.  The  in- 
cident excited  intense  feeling  on  both  sides.  The  Bohemians  de- 
manded that  a  church  be  assigned  to  them  in  Iglau  where  during 
their  stay  they  could  receive  the  sacrament  in  both  kinds ;  the 
legates  refused  the  request,  although  urged  by  the  emperor,  and 
finally,  after  threats  of  departure,  the  Bohemians  were  forced  to 
content  themselves  with  celebrating,  as  they  had  previously  done, 
in  private  houses.* 

When  Sigismund  was  fairly  seated  on  the  throne,  there  f oUowed 
an  endless  series  of  bickerings,  as  the  rites  and  ceremonies  and 
usages  of  the  Roman  Church  were  restored,  supplanting  the  sim- 
pler worship  which  had  prevailed  for  twenty  years.  Consecra- 
tions, confirmations,  images,  relics,  holy  water,  benedictions,  were 
one  by  one  introduced — even  the  hated  religious  orders  were  sur- 
reptitiously smuggled  in.  The  canonical  hours  and  chants  were 
renewed  in  the  churches,  and  every  effort  was  made  to  accustom 
the  people  to  a  resurrection  of  the  old  order  of  things.  On  Cor- 
pus Christi  day,  May  30, 143Y,  a  gorgeous  procession  swept  through 
the  streets  of  Prague  bearing  the  host  on  high ;  the  legate,  the 
Archbishop  of  Kalocsa,  and  the  Bishop  of  Segnia  headed  it,  and 
were  dutifuUy  followed  by  the  emperor  and  empress,  the  nobles 


•  Th.  Ebendorferi  Diar.  (loc.  cit.  82).— Jo.  de  Turonis  Regest.  (lb.  821-22).— 
Naucleri  Chron.  ann.  1436. 


REACTION    IN    BOHEMIA.  539 

and  a  mass  of  citizens.  As  a  mute  protest,  Rokyzana  met  the  splen- 
did array,  attended  only  by  three  priests,  and  bearing  both  host  and 
cup.  To  the  stern  puritans  who  had  so  long  struggled  against 
the  Scarlet  Woman  the  imposing  ceremony  must  have  seemed  a 
bitter  mockery,  for  the  Empress  Barbara,  who  occupied  a  conspicu- 
ous position  in  the  ranks,  was  a  woman  notorious  for  shameless 
licentiousness,  and,  moreover,  was  an  avowed  atheist,  who  disbe- 
lieved in  the  immortahty  of  the  soul.* 

Within  three  weeks  of  this  celebration,  Rokyzana  was  a  fugi- 
tive, seeking  the  protection  of  George  Podiebrad  at  Hradecz,  not 
without  reason,  if  ^neas  Sylvius  is  correct  in  saying  that  Sigis- 
mund  was  about  to  arrest  him  and  punish  him  condignly.  Then 
the  process  of  reaction  went  on  apace.  Had  Sigismund  lived,  he 
might  have  overcome  all  resistance,  and  reduced  the  land  to  obedi- 
ence to  Rome.  His  power  was  constantly  growing.  In  March 
the  surrender  of  the  Taborite  stronghold  of  Konigingratz  filled 
the  Hussites  with  consternation.  JSTot  long  after  siege  was  laid 
to  Zion,  the  fastness  of  John  Rohacz,  a  powerful  baron  who  had 
refused  submission.  He  was  finally  captured  in  it,  brought  to 
Prague,  and  hanged  in  the  presence  of  the  emperor  with  sixty  of 
his  followers  and  a  priest.  Tradition  relates  that  on  that  very 
day  Sigismund  was  attacked  with  an  ulcer  which  grew  constant- 
ly worse  and  ended  his  days  in  December.  Almost  simultaneous 
with  this  was  the  decision  by  the  Council  of  Basle  on  the  question 
of  communion  in  both  elements,  in  which  it  skilfully  evaded  the 
inconsistency  of  the  prohibition  of  the  cup,  and  pronounced  it  to 
be  the  law  of  the  Church,  not  to  be  modified  without  authority. 
As  Albert  of  Austria,  the  son-in-law  and  successor  of  Sigismund, 
was  a  zealous  Catholic  prince,  the  council  was  emboldened  in  Janu- 
ary, 1438,  to  issue  an  edict  reciting  and  ordering  the  strict  enforce- 
ment of  the  implacable  bull  of  February  22,  1418,  by  Martin  Y., 
directed  against  the  errors  of  Wickliff,  Uuss,  and  Jerome.  This 
evidence  of  what  they  were  to  expect  as  the  outcome  of  the  Com- 
pactata  gave  the  Taborrtes  and  the  disaffected  parties  in  Bohemia 
new  energy.  After  a  fruitless  appeal  to  the  council  an  alliance 
was  made  with  Poland,  whose  boy-king,  Casimir,  was  elected  as  a 


*  Jo.  de  Turonis  Regest.  (loc.  cit.  pp.  863,  865). — ^n.  Sylvii  EBst.  Bohem.  c. 
69. — Naucleri  Chron.  ann.  1437. 


540  THE    HUSSITES. 

competitor.  Thus  strengthened  they  offered  effective  resistance 
to  Albert,  who  up  to  his  sudden  death,  October  27, 1439,  was  un- 
able to  occupy  the  whole  of  his  kingdom.  Four  months  later, 
Ladislas,  his  posthumous  son,  was  born,  and  a  long  minority,  with 
its  accompanying  turbulence,  enabled  the  Calixtins  again  to  get 
the  upper  hand,  over  both  the  Taborites  and  the  Catholics.  In 
1441  a  council  held  at  Kuttenberg  organized  the  national  Church 
on  a  Calixtin  basis.  Several  conferences  were  held  with  the  Ta- 
borites, and  the  points  at  issue  were  referred  to  the  national  diet 
held  in  January,  1444.  Its  emphatic  decision  in  favor  of  the  Cahx- 
tin  doctrine  broke  up  the  Taborite  organization.  The  cities  stiU 
held  by  them  surrendered  one  by  one,  and  the  members  were  scat- 
tered, for  the  most  part  joining  the  Calixtins.  As  a  separate 
sect  they  may  be  said  to  have  disappeared  when,  in  1452,  George 
Podiebrad  captured  Mount  Tabor  and  dispersed  their  remains.* 

After  the  death  of  Albert  what  central  authority  there  was  in 
Bohemia  was  lodged  in  the  hands  of  two  governors,  Ptacek  rep- 
resenting the  Calixtins,  and  Mainhard  of  Rosenberg,  the  victor 
of  Lipan,  the  Catholics.  In  October,  1443,  we  hear  of  the  Em- 
peror Frederic  III.  as  about  starting  for  Bohemia  where  he  ex- 
pected to  receive  the  regency,  but  his  hopes  were  frustrated. 
Ptacek  died  in  1445,  when  the  choice  for  his  succession  fell  upon 
George  Podiebrad,  a  powerful  baron,  who,  though  only  twenty- 
four,  had  acquired  a  high  reputation  for  military  abihty  and  sa- 
gacity. He  was  largely  under  the  influence  of  Rokyzana,  to  whom 
doubtless  his  election  was  due.  After  a  long  interval,  Rome  again 
appeared  upon  the  scene.  Nicholas  V.,  who  ascended  the  papal 
throne  in  1447,  sent,  in  1448,  John,  Cardinal  of  Sant'  Angelo,  to 
Prague  as  legate.  The  Bohemians  earnestly  urged  him  to  ratify 
the  Compactata  and  confirm  Rokyzana  as  archbishop.  He  prom- 
ised an  answer,  but  finding  the  situation  embarrassing,  he  secretly 
left  Prague  with  Mainhard  of  Rosenberg.     Popular  indignation 

*  Mn.  Sylvii  Epist.  Ixxi.  (0pp.  inedd.  ap.  Atti  della  Accademia  dei  Lincei, 
1883,  p.  465).— Jo.  de  Turonis  Regest.  (Mod.  Cone.  Gen.  Saec.  XV.  T.  I.  pp.  855, 
857).— Camerarii  Hist.  Frat.  Orthod.  pp.  57-8.— Naucleri  Chron.  ann.  1436, 1438. 
— Concil.  Basiliens.  Sess.  XXX.  (Harduin.  VIH.  1244).  —  Petitiones  Bohemorum 
(Fascic.  Rer.  Expetend.  et  Fugiend.  I.  319,  Ed.  1690).— Martene  Ampl.  Coll. VIII. 
942-3.— ^n.  Sylvii  Epist.  101  (Ed.  1571,  p.  591).— Chron.  Cornel.  Zantfliet  (Mar- 
tene Ampl.  Coll.  V.  445). — De  Schweinitz,  Hist,  of  Unitas  Fratrum,  pp.  91-2,  94. 


THE    SITUATION    IN    BOHEMIA.  541 

enabled  George  by  a  coup  cTetat,  in  which  there  was  considerable 
bloodshed,  to  render  himself  master  of  Prague  and  to  cast  Main- 
hard  into  prison,  where  he  died  soon  after.  George  thus  became 
the  undisputed  master  of  Bohemia.  When  Ladislas,  in  1452,  was 
recognized  as  king,  George  secured  the  regency,  and  when  the 
young  monarch  died  towards  the  close  of  1457,  at  the  early  age  of 
eighteen,  George's  coronation  as  king  soon  followed.  Under  him, 
until  just  before  his  death  in  1471,  Rokyzana's  influence  was  al- 
most unbounded.* 

The  situation  of  Bohemia,  as  a  member  of  the  Latin  Church, 
was  unprecedented.  After  the  first  break  between  Eugenius  lY. 
and  the  Council  of  Basle  the  name  of  the  pope  disappears  in  the 
negotiations  for  the  restoration  of  unity.  These  were  carried  on 
by  both  sides  as  though  the  concihar  authority  was  supreme,  and 
the  papal  assent  or  confirmation  was  a  matter  of  no  moment,  al- 
though a  papal  legate  was  present  in  January,  1436,  at  the  con- 
ference at  Stuhlweissenberg,  where  the  matter  was  virtually  set- 
tled. As  the  council  drew  to  its  weary  end,  powerless  and  dis- 
credited, the  triumphant  Eugenius  was  not  disposed  to  recognize 
the  validity  of  its  acts  or  to  ratify  them  gratuitously.  The  Bo- 
hemians alleged  that  he  had  confirmed  the  Compactata,  but  no 
positive  evidence  was  forthcoming.  To  purchase  the  submission 
of  Germany,  in  1447,  he  had  ratified  a  portion  of  the  acts  of  the 
council,  but  the  Compactata  could  not  be  included  in  his  carefully 
guarded  decrees.  On  the  accession  of  Nicholas  Y.,  in  1447,  the 
Bohemians  sent  to  him  a  deputation  offering  him  their  allegiance, 
but  we  have  seen  how  wary  was  the  legate  whom  he  despatched 
in  return  to  Prague.  It  is  true  that  to  obtain  the  abdication  of 
Felix  Y.,  Nicholas  issued  a  bull,  June  28,  1449,  approving  all  the 
acts  of  the  council  which  might  strictly  be  held  to  confirm  the 
Compactata,  but  the  character  of  the  bull  shows  that  it  had  in 
view  rather  the  material  interests  involved  in  benefices  and  prefer- 
ment. Whatever  doubt  the  Bohemians  may  have  had  as  to  the 
papal  intentions  towards  them  was  speedily  dissipated.f 


•  ^n.  Sylvii  Hist.  Bohem.  c.  58.— Ejusd.  Epist.  xix.  (0pp.  inedd.  p.  397).— 
Raynald.  ann.  1448,  No.  3-5. 

f  ^gid.  Carlerii.  Lib.  de  Legation.  (Monument.  Cone.  Gen.  Saec.  XV.  T.  I. 
pp.  691,  694).— Cochlaei  Hist.  Hussit.  Lib.  xii.  auu.  1462.— Wadding,  anu.  1452, 


542  '^HE    HUSSITES. 

Rome,  in  fact,  had  never  proposed  to  recognize  the  compromise 
made  by  the  council.  While  the  latter  was  busy  in  endeavoring  to 
win  back  the  Hussites,  Eugenius  1 V.  was  laboring  for  their  exter- 
mination by  the  usual  methods,  in  such  regions  as  he  could  reach. 
The  relations  between  Bohemia  and  Hungary  had  long  been  close, 
and  Hussitism  had  spread  widely  throughout  the  latter  kingdom 
as  well  as  in  the  Slavic  territories  to  the  south.  As  early  as  1413 
we  hear  complaints  of  Wickliffite  doctrines  carried  into  Croatia 
by  students  returning  from  the  University  of  Prague.  As  Sigis- 
mund  was  King  of  Hungary,  the  Compactata  were  supposed  to 
cover  the  Hungarian  Hussites,  and  were  published  in  Hungarian 
as  well  as  in  Bohemian,  German,  and  Latin.  We  have  seen,  how- 
ever, how  false  he  was  to  his  Bohemian  subjects,  and  those  of 
Hungary  he  cheerfully  abandoned  to  Rome.  Six  weeks  after  the 
signature  of  the  Compactata  at  Iglau,  on  August  22,  1436,  Euge- 
nius commissioned  the  indefatigable  persecutor,  Era  Giacomo  della 
Marca,  as  Inquisitor  of  Hungary  and  Austria.  He  was  already  on 
the  ground,  for  in  January  of  that  year  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  him 
as  present  in  the  conference  at  Stuhlweissenberg.  Era  Giacomo 
lost  no  time.  Before  the  close  of  the  year  he  had  traversed  Hun- 
gary from  end  to  end,  with  merciless  severity.  The  Archbishop 
of  Gran,  the  Chapter  of  Kalocsa,  the  Bishop  of  Waradein,  were 
loud  in  his  praises.  Their  dioceses,  they  said,  had  been  infected 
with  heretics  so  numerous  that  a  rising  was  anticipated  which 
would  have  exceeded  in  horror  the  Bohemian  wars,  but  this  holy 
man  had  exterminated  them.  The  numbers  whom  he  put  to  death 
are  not  enumerated,  but  they  must  have  been  considerable  from 
the  expressions  employed,  and  from  the  terror  inspired,  for  his  as- 
sociates declared  that  in  this  expedition  he  had  received  the  sub- 
mission of  fifty-five  thousand  converts.  As  the  Bishop  of  Wara- 
dein rapturously  declared,  had  the  Apostle  Paul  accompanied  him 

No.  1-4.— Raynald.  ann.  1446,  No.  3,  4 ;  ann.  1447,  No.  5-7.— Harduin.  VIII. 
1307-9. 

The  papal  view  of  the  permission  to  use  the  cup,  as  set  forth  by  Pius  II. 
(^neas  Sylvius)  in  1464,  was  that  it  was  only  conceded  to  those  accustomed  to 
it  until  the  Council  of  Basle  should  decide  the  question.  Had  this  been  ob- 
served those  who  used  it  would  in  time  have  died  out,  and  it  was  an  infraction 
of  the  agreement  to  give  it  to  children  and  new  communicants,  through  whom 
the  custom  was  perpetuated. — -^n.  Sylvii  Epist.  Ixxi.  (0pp.  inedd.  pp.  465). 


PERSECUTION    IN    HUNGARY.  543 

he  could  not  have  effected  more.  Earnestly  tlie  Bishops  of  Csa- 
nad  and  Transylvania  appealed  to  him  to  visit  their  dioceses,  which 
abounded  in  heretics ;  and  as  the  latter  prelate  speaks  of  the  Huss- 
ites having  penetrated  to  his  bishopric  from  Moldavia,  it  shows  how 
widely  the  heresy  had  been  diffused  through  southeastern  Europe.* 

Suddenly,  in  1437,  Fra  Giacomo's  career  was  interrupted.  He 
had  crushed  the  Fraticelh  of  Italy,  the  wild  Cathari  of  Bosnia, 
and  the  fiercer  Hussites  of  Hungary,  but  when  he  attacked  the 
orthodox  concubinary  priests  of  Fiinfkirchen,  and  strove  to  force 
them  to  abandon  the  illicit  partners  who  w^ere  universally  kept, 
they  proved  too  strong  for  even  his  iron  will  and  seasoned  nerves, 
backed  though  he  was  by  the  power  of  pope  and  kaiser  and  the 
awful  authority  of  the  Inquisition.  They  raised  such  a  storm  at 
this  attempted  invasion  of  their  accustomed  privileges  that  he  w^as 
obliged  to  abandon  his  work  and  fly  for  his  Hfe.  He  appealed  to 
Eugenius,  and  Eugenius  to  Sigismund.  The  latter  wrote  to  Henry, 
the  Bishop  of  Fiinfkirchen,  peremptorily  ordering  him  to  recaU 
Giacomo  and  give  him  every  aid,  and  also  to  Giacomo,  assuring 
him  of  support.  Thus  assailed.  Bishop  Henry  gave  instructions 
that  Giacomo  should  be  supplied  with  aU  necessaries,  but  the  at- 
tempt to  enforce  chastity  on  the  priesthood  seems  to  have  been 
abandoned.  The  customary  penalty  in  Hungary  for  such  offences 
was  five  marks,  and  the  synods  of  Gran  in  1450  and  1480  complain 
that  the  archdeacons  not  only  keep  these  fines  for  themselves,  but 
encourage  the  criminals  in  order  to  derive  profit  from  them  j  in 
fact,  they  issued  in  Hungary,  as  in  many  other  places,  licenses  to 
sin,  which  may,  perhaps,  explain  the  indignation  caused  by  Gia- 
como's interference  and  its  lack  of  success.f 

He  appears  to  have  meddled  no  longer  with  the  private  lives 
of  the  orthodox  clergy,  but  to  have  devoted  his  energies  to  the 
easier  work  of  exterminating  heretics.  Early  in  143Y  we  hear  of 
him  south  of  the  Danube,  where  the  Bishop  of  Sreim  praised  his 
effective  work ;  by  putting  to  death  all  who  could  not  be  converted, 
he  had  saved  the  diocese  from  a  rising  of  the  Hussites,  in  which 

*  Loserth,  Mittheilungen  des  Vereiiis  fiir  Gesch.  der  Deutschen  in  Bolimen, 
1885,  pp.  103-4,  107.— Wadding,  ann.  143G,  No.  1-11.— iEgid.  Carlerii.  Lib.  de 
Legation.  (Mon.  Cone.  Gen.  Ssec.  XV.  T.  I.  p.  691). 

t  Wadding,  ann.  1437,  No.  6-12.— Synodd.  Strigonens.  ann.  1450,  1480  (Bat- 
thyani  Legg.  Eccles.  Hung.  III.  481, 557). 


544  THE    HUSSITES. 

all  the  clergy  would  have  been  slain.  Eugenius  rewarded  him  by 
describing  him  as  "  a  vigorous  and  most  ruthless  extirpator  of 
heresy,"  and  granting  him  the  power  of  appointing  subordinate 
inquisitors,  thus  rendering  him  an  inquisitor-general  in  all  the 
wide  region  confided  to  him.  It  was  probably  a  result  of  the 
quarrel  over  the  priestly  concubines  that  led,  in  1438,  Simon  of 
Bacska,  Archdeacon  of  Fiinfkirchen,  to  excommunicate  him  ;  but 
that  official  was  speedily  forced  to  withdraw  the  anathema  by  the 
Emperor  Albert  and  the  Archbishop  of  Gran,  For  a  while  his  la- 
bors were  interrupted  by  a  call  to  attend  the  Council  of  Ferrara, 
held  in  1438  by  Eugenius  IV.,  to  offset  the  hostile  assemblage  at 
Basle,  but  he  speedily  returned  to  Hungary.  It  was  doubtless 
owing  to  his  efforts  that  in  Poland  the  barons  and  cities  entered 
into  a  solemn  league  and  covenant  to  suppress  heresy,  April  25, 
1438 — just  before  Poland  intervened  in  Bohemia  to  protect  the 
Hussites  from  the  Emperor  Albert.  In  1439  Giacomo's  zeal  re- 
ceived a  check  on  the  more  immediate  fields  of  his  labors.  In 
Sreim  he  delivered  to  the  secular  arm,  as  convicted  heretics,  a 
priest  and  three  associates  ;  their  friends  assembled  in  force,  broke 
open  the  prison  and  carried  off  the  culprits,  and,  what  is  difficult 
to  understand,  unless  the  heresy  was  merely  concubinage,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Kalocsa,  when  appealed  to,  protected  the  criminals. 
Giacomo  had  recourse  to  the  Emperor  Albert,  who  wrote  sharply 
to  the  archbishop  in  June ;  and  this  proving  ineffectual,  again  in 
August.  What  was  the  result  of  the  affair  is  not  known,  but  Al- 
bert, as  we  have  seen,  died  in  October,  to  the  great  detriment  of 
religion;  and  in  1440  Giacomo  left  Hungary  on  account  of  ill- 
health.  He  seems  not  to  have  been  immediately  replaced,  and,  in 
the  absence  of  organized  persecution,  the  tares  speedily  began  to 
multiply  again  among  the  wheat.  In  January,  1444,  Eugenius 
IV.,  deploring  the  spread  of  Hussitism  throughout  the  Danubian 
regions,  appointed  the  Observantine  Vicar  Fabiano  of  Bacs  as  in- 
quisitor for  the  whole  Slavonian  vicariate,  which  included  Hun- 
gary, with  power  to  appoint  inquisitors  under  him.  These  were 
authorized  to  act  in  complete  independence  of  the  local  prelates ; 
Holy  Land  indulgences  were  promised  to  all  who  would  aid  them, 
and  excommunication,  removable  only  by  pope  or  inquisitor, 
against  all  withholding  assistance.  In  July,  1446,  Eugenius  again 
alludes  to  the  flourishing  condition  of  Hussitism  in  Hungary  and 


ROME    DISREGARDS    THE    COMPACTATA.  545 

Moldavia,  in  spite  of  the  labors  of  the  friars,  and  he  recurs  to  the 
question  which  baffled  Giacomo  della  Marca.  Many  parish  priests, 
he  says,  in  these  regions  not  only  keep  concubines  publicly,  but 
teach  that  there  is  no  sin  in  intercourse  between  unmarried  per- 
sons ;  the  question  has  been  asked  him  whether  this  is  heresy,  jus- 
ticiable by  the  Inquisition  ;  this  he  answers  in  the  affirmative,  and 
authorizes  Fabiano  and  his  deputies  to  treat  it  as  such.  Appar- 
ently it  was  not  the  practice  itself,  but  the  justification  of  it,  which 
was  so  heinous.* 

If  Kome  was  thus  active  in  repressing  Hussitism,  and  thus  re- 
gardless of  the  Compactata  while  crippled  by  the  quarrel  with  the 
fathers  of  Basle,  it  may  readily  be  imagined  that,  after  the  abdi- 
cation of  Felix  y.  and  the  restoration  of  unquestioned  supremacy, 
Nicholas  Y.  was  not  disposed  to  respect  the  bargain  made  by  the 
council  or  to  regard  the  Cahxtins  in  any  light  but  that  of  here- 
tics. It  was  in  vain  that  the  Bohemians  proffered  obedience  if 
only  the  Compactata  were  confirmed,  with  a  tacit  condition  that 
Kokyzana's  claims  to  the  archbishopric  should  be  recognized. 
Ostensibly  the  sole  difficulty  in  the  way  of  reunion  lay  in  the  use 
of  the  cup  by  the  laity  and  the  communion  of  infants ;  save  this 
there  was  by  this  time  but  little  to  distinguish  the  Calixtins  from 
the  rest  of  the  Latin  churches,  although  occasionally  the  question, 
of  the  sequestrated  church  lands  emerged  into  view.  The  papacy 
had  taken  its  position,  however,  and  it  would  have  plunged  all 
Christendom  into  war,  as,  in  fact,  it  more  than  once  attempted, 
rather  than  admit  that  the  Council  of  Basle  had  been  justified  in 
purchasing  peace  by  conceding  communion  in  both  elements.  Be- 
hind this,  however,  was  the  question  of  Ilokyzana's  confirmation. 
^Eneas  Sylvius  informs  us  that  in  1451  he  convinced  George  Po- 
diebrad  of  the  impossibility  of  effecting  this,  and  secured  a  prom- 
ise that  the  attempt  should  bo  abandoned,  he  pledging  himself 
that  if  George  would  present  the  names  of  several  suitable  persons 
the  pope  would  select  one,  and  peace  would  then  be  established. 
This  treated  the  Compactata  as  of  minor  importance,  and  was 


•  Wadding,  ann.  1437,  No.  13-21 ;  ann.  1438,  No.  12-16  ;  ann.  1439,  No.  41-6 ; 
ann.  1440,  No.  7  ;  ann.  1444,  No.  44 ;  ann.  1446,  No.  10.— Ilcrburt  dc  Fulstin  Sta- 
tuta  Regni  PolonuB,  Samoscii,   1597,  p.  193. — Raynald.   ann.   1446,  No.    10. — 
Theiner  Monument.  Slavor.  Meridian.  I.  394. 
II.-35 


546  THE   HUSSITES. 

doubtless  wholly  unauthorized.  Neither  George  nor  Eokyzana 
gave  up  their  hopes ;  the  effort  was  renewed  agaiii  and  again, 
now  with  the  pope,  now  with  the  Emperor  Frederic  III.,  and  now 
with  the  German  Diet,  but  all  to  no  purpose.  Occasionally  when 
there  was  an  object  to  be  gained  hopes  would  be  held  out,  only 
to  be  withdrawn.  The  papal  emissaries  represented  Eokyzana  to 
Rome  as  the  most  wicked  and  perfidious  of  heresiarchs,  whose  rec- 
ognition would  be  the  destruction  of  what  remained  of  Catholi- 
cism in  Bohemia,  and  there  never  was  the  shghtest  idea  of  con- 
firming  him.* 

When  the  overthrow  of  Mainhard  of  Rosenberg  and  the  con- 
centration of  power  in  the  hands  of  George  Podiebrad  showed 
that  no  further  hopes  were  to  be  built  on  the  Catholic  party  in 
Bohemia,  Nicholas  Y.  fell  back  upon  the  old  methods  and  resolved 
to  try  what  could  be  done  by  a  missionary  inquisitor.  He  had  at 
hand  an  instrument  admirably  fitted  for  the  work.  Giovanni  da 
Capistrano,  vicar-general  of  the  Observantine  Franciscans,  had 
commenced  his  career  as  an  inquisitor  in  1417 ;  he  was  now  in  his 
sixty-sixth  year,  vigorous  and  implacable  as  ever.  Small  and  in- 
significant in  appearance,  shrivelled  by  austerities  until  he  seemed 

*  ^n.  Sylvii.  Epistt.  130,  246-7, 259,  404  (Ed.  1571,  pp.  667,  782-3,  788, 947).— 
Waddiug.  ann.  1455,  No.  2  ;  ann.  1456,  No.  11-12. 

In  George  Podiebrad's  letter  of  1468  to  his  son-in-law  Matthius  Corvinus, 
complaining  of  his  treatment  by  the  Holy  See,  he  says,  "  In  truth  there  were 
formerly  in  Bohemia  many  errors  concerning  the  sacrament,  and  also  concerning 
the  ornaments  and  vestments  in  administering  the  rite,  and  the  veneration  of 
saints,  but  by  divine  grace  these  have  been  so  reduced  that  there  is  scarcely 
any  difference  now  existing  with  the  Roman  Church.  By  comparing  what  was 
customary  thirty  or  forty  years  ago  with  the  present,  it  will  be  seen  that  little 
remains  to  do  in  comparison  with  what  has  been  accomplished." — D'Achery 
Spicileg.  III.  834. 

A  notable  part  of  this  retrogression  occurred  in  1454,  when  edicts  were  is- 
sued in  the  name  of  Ladislas,  with  the  consent  of  Rokyzana,  ordering  that  the 
epistles  and  gospels,  in  the  canon  of  the  mass,  should  be  recited  in  Latin  and 
not  in  the  vulgar  tongue ;  that  confession  should  be  a  prerequisite  to  commun- 
ion; that  children  should  not  receive  communion  without  due  preparation; 
that  the  blood  of  the  Eucharist  should  not  be  carried  beyond  the  churches  for 
fear  of  accidents;  that  no  one  should  administer  it  without  letters  authenti- 
cating his  priesthood ;  that  no  marriage  should  be  celebrated  without  banns 
published  in  full  church. — Chrou.  Cornel.  Zautliiet.  ann.  1454  (Martene  Ampl. 
CoU.  V.  486-7). 


GIOVANNI    DA   CAPISTRANO.  547 

to  consist  only  of  skin  and  bone  and  nerves,  he  rarely  tasted  meat 
and  allowed  himself  but  four  hours  of  sleep  out  of  the  twenty- 
four,  the  remainder  being  all  too  few  for  his  restless  and  indefat- 
igable activity.  His  saintly  and  self-denying  life  had  gained  him 
enviable  powers  as  a  thaumaturge,  and  his  reputation  as  a  preacher 
drew  crowds  to  listen  to  his  eloquence.  In  1451  he  was  busy  in 
exterminating  the  Fraticelli,  but  he  suspended  his  bloody  work  at 
the  call  of  Nicholas  to  undertake  the  conversion  of  the  Hussites. 
Nothing  was  omitted  that  could  contribute  to  the  dramatic  effect 
of  his  mission.  Before  assuming  it  he  sought  the  divine  assent  by 
consulting  the  Virgin  at  Assisi,  when  the  heavenly  Ught  diffused 
around  him  was  a  sign  that  his  apostolate  was  confirmed ;  he  ac- 
cepted the  enlarged  powers  which  extended  his  inquisitorial  com- 
mission to  the  Bohemian  territories,  and  set  forth.  Everywhere 
on  his  road  multitudes  assembled  to  see  and  listen  to  the  man  of 
God,  and  everywhere  his  miraculous  powers  manifested  the  au- 
thenticity of  his  mission.  At  Brescia  he  addressed  an  assembly 
computed  at  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  souls,  and,  though 
walls  and  trees  were  broken  down  by  the  masses  of  men  gathered 
thickly  upon  them,  not  a  human  being  was  injured.  At  the  cross- 
ing of  the  Elver  Sile,  near  Treviso,  the  party,  with  true  Observan- 
tine  austerity,  had  no  money  to  pay  ferriage,  and  the  surly  ferry- 
man refused  free  transportation ;  but  Capistrano  quietly  took  the 
habit  of  San  Bernardino,  which  he  carried  with  him,  laid  it  upon 
the  waters,  and  they  shrank  away  till  all  had  passed  dry-shod, 
when  they  resumed  their  former  volume.  Thus  heralded,  his  way 
through  Venice  and  Vienna  was  a  triumphal  progress  ;  crowds  of 
sixty  thousand  or  one  hundred  thousand  to  hear  him  preach  were 
common ;  men  came  from  a  distance  of  five  hundred  miles  to  listen 
to  him ;  at  Vienna  three  hundred  thousand  were  reckoned  pres- 
ent ;  the  sick  were  brought  before  him  in  thousands,  and  the  mi- 
raculous cures  which  he  wrought  were  computed  by  liundrcds. 
The  ecclesiastical  machinery  was  evidently  well-devised  and  ef- 
fectively worked,  and  the  desired  impression  was  produced.* 

In  vain  the  emperor  asked  permission  for  liini  to  visit  Prague. 
Podiebrad  and  Rokyzana  refused  it  peremptorily,  ami  Capistrano's 
zeal  for  martyrdom  was  not  sufficient  to  prompt  him  to  disregard 


♦  Wadding,  ann.  1451,  No.  1-16 ;  ann.  1452,  No.  84. 


548  THE    HUSSITES. 

their  wishes.  Furnished  with  imperial  letters  to  the  Catholic  no- 
bles and  to  their  leader,  Ulric  Mainhard  of  Eosenberg,  he  turned 
in  Jul}'-  to  the  safer  region  of  Moravia,  where  presumably  the  in- 
fluence of  Podiebrad  and  Rokyzana  was  not  so  strong.  Here  his 
career  indicates  how  little  foundation  there  was  for  the  persistent 
Catholic  complaints  of  the  proscriptive  intolerance  of  the  Calixtins. 
Though  on  Bohemian  territory,  Catholic  and  Hussite  seem  to  have 
been  dwelling  together  in  mutual  harmony ;  the  Bishop  of  Olmiitz 
was  a  Catholic,  and  no  hindrance  seems  to  have  been  experienced 
by  Capistrano  in  his  labors  for  the  conversion  of  the  so-called  her- 
etics. Beginning  at  Briinn,  August  1, 1451,  there  is  a  register  con- 
taining names  and  dates  of  more  than  eleven  thousand  conversions 
made  by  him  up  to  May,  1452.  Yet  at  the  same  time  he  was  re- 
stricted to  persuasion,  and  was  not  allowed  to  use  inquisitorial 
methods.  As  his  converts  were  voluntary,  he  smoothed  the  path 
of  the  repentant  heretic,  reconciling  him  to  the  Church  with  only 
the  infliction  of  a  salutary  penance,  and  allowing  him  to  retain  all 
his  possessions  and  dignities.  "Where  the  heretic  was  hardened, 
he  was  powerless,  except  through  such  miraculous  power  as  he 
could  wield.  The  situation  was  an  anomalous  one — unexampled, 
in  fact,  in  the  Middle  Ages — of  heretic  and  Catholic  dwelling  to- 
gether in  peace,  the  heretic  in  the  ascendant,  yet  not  only  toler- 
ating the  Catholic,  but  allowing  a  man  like  Capistrano  to  wander 
through  the  land  denouncing  heretics  and  making  conversions  un- 
molested. To  Capistrano  the  position  was  irritating  in  the  ex- 
treme, insomuch  as  he  was  limited  to  the  arts  of  persuasion,  and 
was  unable  to  enforce  his  arguments  with  the  dungeon  and  the 
stake.  This  peculiar  state  of  things  is  well  illustrated  by  an  ad- 
venture related  of  him  at  Breslau.  Though  Silesia  had  a  Catholic 
bishop,  it  belonged  to  Bohemia,  and  mutual  tolerance  was  estab- 
lished. In  the  summer  of  1453  Capistrano  came  there  and  labored 
to  convert  the  Hussites,  but  these  sons  of  Belial,  to  ridicule  his 
miraculous  powers,  placed  a  young  man  in  a  bier,  carried  him  to 
where  the  inquisitor  was  preaching,  and  asked  the  latter  to  resus- 
citate the  dead.  Capistrano  sternly  replied,  "  Let  him  have  his 
portion  with  the  dead  in  eternity!"  and  went  his  way.  Then  the 
heretics  said  to  the  crowd,  "  We  have  holier  men  among  us  ;"  and 
one  of  them  went  to  the  coffin,  calling  to  its  inmate,  "  Peter, 
arise !"  and  then  whispering,  "  It  is  time  to  get  up ;"  but  there 


CAPISTRANO    AND    THE    CALIXTINS.  549 

was  no  response,  and  the  unfortunate  youth  was  found  to  be 
really  dead.  Yet  at  this  very  time  Capistrano  had  no  difficulty 
in  exercising  his  inquisitorial  office  pitilessly  when  the  victims 
were  unfortunate  Jews.  A  country  priest  was  said  to  have  sold 
them  eight  consecrated  hosts  for  use  in  their  infernal  rites.  Ca- 
pistrano seized  those  implicated,  tortured  them  to  confession,  and 
burned  them,  while  a  woman  who  was  imphcated  was  torn  with 
red-hot  pincers.  An  old  Jewess  embraced  Christianity,  and  soon 
afterwards  was  slain.  The  Jews  were  accused  of  the  murder,  and 
also  of  that  of  a  Christian  boy.  Capistrano  made  another  on- 
slaught on  them,  and  this  time  burned  no  less  than  forty-one.  It 
is  easy  to  gather  from  this  incident  what  would  have  been  the 
fate  of  the  Hussites  had  he  been  able  to  ^\Teak  his  will  on  them. 
Those  of  Moldavia  and  Poland,  whither  he  despatched  three  of  his 
associate  inquisitors  under  Ladislas  the  Hungarian,  probably  felt 
the  full  rigor  of  the  canons.* 

During  all  this  the  Calixtin  leaders  had  not  been  wholly  in- 
different. At  the  commencement  of  Capistrano's  mission  Roky- 
zana  wrote  to  him  in  a  friendly  tone,  remonstrating  with  him  for 
condemning  as  a  heresy  the  communion  in  both  elements,  which 
the  Council  of  Basle  had  permitted  to  the  Bohemians.  Some 
correspondence  ensued,  in  which  Capistrano  took  high  ground  as 
to  the  use  of  the  cup  and  the  papal  supremacy ;  there  were  nego- 
tiations for  a  conference,  and  at  one  time  hopes  were  entertained 
of  an  accommodation.  Capistrano,  however,  skilfully  eluded  a 
disputation  on  various  pretexts,  but  really,  as  Ave  learn  from  his 
confidential  letter  to  the  cardinal-legate,  Nicholas  of  Cusa,  because 
he  knew  that  the  Calixtins  had  on  their  side  the  weight  of  au- 
thority and  tradition.  Both  parties  gradually  lost  their  temper 
and  published  against  each  other  letters  filled  with  scurrility. 
Having  thus  rendered  amicable  negotiations  impossible,  Capis- 
trano could  safely,  in  1452,  ask  Podiel)rad  for  a  safe-conduct  to 
Prague,  and  on  its  refusal  summon  him  to  render  the  aid  and 
service  due  to  him  as  apostolic  commissioner  and  inquisitor.f 

When  the  German  princes  assembled  in  the  Diet  of  1452,  the 


*  Wadding,  ann.  1451,  No.  17-20;  ann.  1453,  No.  18,26;  ann.  1453,  No.  2-8. 
t  Waddinn:.  ann.  1451,  No.  24-36;  ann.  1452,  No.  1,  12.— Sonimcrsbcrg  Si- 
lesiac.  Rer.  Scriptt.  I.  84-5.— Cocliloei  Hist.  Hussit.  Lib.  x.  aun.  1451. 


550  THE   HUSSITES. 

Bohemians  addressed  them,  complaining  that  although  they  were 
Uving  in  peace  and  obedience  to  the  Holy  See,  the  provisions  of 
the  Compactata,  which  declared  that  no  one  should  be  stigmatized 
as  a  heretic  for  partaking  in  both  elements,  were  violated  by  a 
friar  named  Capistrano,  who,  under  the  guise  of  an  apostolic  com- 
missioner and  inquisitor,  was  traversing  their  territories  proclaim- 
ing that  all  Utraquists  were  heretics.  The  agreement  which  had 
cost  so  much  blood  was  thus  plainly  infringed,  and,  notwith- 
standing their  desire  for  peace,  a  persistence  in  this  would  revive 
all  the  old  troubles.  This  was  significant  of  strife,  and  Capis- 
trano, on  his  side,  was  eagerly  engaged  in  stimulating  it.  He 
wrote  to  the  pope  that  certain  propositions  of  accommodation 
entertained  by  the  cardinal-legate  were  disgraceful,  and  spoke 
hopefully  of  negotiations  which  he  was  carrying  on  with  the  Ger- 
man princes  for  a  new  crusade  against  the  Hussites.  Nicholas 
of  Cusa  was  effectually  snubbed  for  daring  to  talk  of  conferences 
and  terms  of  accommodation.  He  promptly  threw  himself  on  the 
other  side  and  contributed  his  share  towards  provoking  a  fresh 
conflict,  by  issuing,  in  June,  1452,  an  encyclical  to  the  Bohemians, 
in  which  he  plainly  told  them  that  those  who  were  not  with  the 
Church  must  be  against  it ;  that  the  Compactata  must  be  thrown 
aside,  as  they  had  not  effected  the  union  for  which  they  were 
designed,  and  that  nothing  save  pure  and  simple  obedience  to  the 
Holy  See  could  be  entertained.  To  render  the  irritation  complete 
needed  only  the  exquisite  insolence  with  which  he  assured  them 
that  the  Church  was  too  pious  a  mother  to  concede  to  her  children 
what  she  knew  to  be  injurious.* 

Capistrano's  busy  mischief -making  was  bearing  its  fruits.  The 
breach  between  Rome  and  Bohemia  was  constantly  widening,  and 
if  the  zeal  of  the  German  princes  could  be  brought  to  correspond 
to  the  ardor  of  the  missionary  of  strife,  the  horrors  of  the  old 
Hussite  wars  might  be  hopefully  looked  for  again.  During  the 
remainder  of  the  year  1452  we  find  him  travelling  through  Ger- 
many, probably  with  this  charitable  object,  though  at  Leipsic  he 
paused  long  enough  for  his  eloquence  to  win  for  his  rigid  Order 
sixty  professors  and  students.f    His  efforts  to  raise  a  crusade 


*  Wadding,  ann.  1452,  No.  2-4,  13-14. — Cochlsei  Hist.  Hussit.  Lib.  xi.  ann. 
1452.  t  Chrou.  Glassberger  ann.  1452. 


CAPTURE    OF   CONSTANTINOPLE.  551 

against  Bohemia,  however,  were  frustrated  by  the  capture  of 
Constantinople  in  May,  1453.  The  immense  impression  which 
this  produced  throughout  Christendom,  the  universal  alarm  at 
the  progress  of  the  Turk,  and  the  necessity  of  defending  Europe 
against  his  approach,  speedily  threw  into  the  shade  all  minor 
questions.  A  new  crusade  was  imperatively  wanted,  but  it  could 
not  be  wasted  upon  Bohemia  and  the  Utraquists. 

During  the  summer  of  1453,  as  we  have  seen,  Capistrano  was 
tranquilly  employing  his  enforced  leisure  in  burning  Jews  at 
Breslau.  Thence  he  went  to  Poland,  where  we  find  him  at  Cra- 
cow throwing  into  prison  a  physician,  Master  Paul,  whom  he  sus- 
pected of  being  an  emissary  of  Rokyzana.  He  applied  again  to 
Podiebrad  for  a  safe-conduct  to  Prague,  which  was  curtly  refused 
on  the  ground  that  when  it  had  been  previously  offered  it  had 
not  been  accepted,  and  that  Ladislas  did  not  want  the  peace  of 
his  kingdom  disturbed.  He  left  Cracow  May  15, 1454,  for  Bres- 
lau and  Olmiitz,  whence  he  still  hoped  to  accomplish  something 
within  the  charmed  circle  of  Bohemia,  into  which  he  had  not  been 
allowed  to  penetrate.  Rokyzana  at  this  time  was  inspired  with 
hopes  that  the  terror  of  the  Turk  and  the  need  for  Christian 
unity  would  enable  him  to  realize  his  dream  of  the  archbishopric. 
He  made  the  large  concessions  alluded  to  above  on  many  of  the 
points  of  dissidence,  and  used  every  effort  with  the  emperor  to 
procure  through  him  the  papal  confirmation.  A  letter  from  Ladis- 
las, of  June  13,  to  the  Bishop  of  Olmiitz,  asking  him  to  restrain 
Capistrano  from  using  such  violent  terms  in  denouncing  Bohe- 
mians, as  he  was  doing  more  harm  than  good,  was  evidently  a 
move  in  the  same  game.  Yet  even  the  paramount  interests  of 
Christendom  could  not  win  for  Rokyzana  the  coveted  confirma- 
tion, although  those  interests  soon  diverted  Capistrano's  fiery 
energies  from  the  heretic  to  the  infidel.* 

A  brief  and  clear-cut  letter  of  J^neas  Sylvius  to  Capistrano, 
dated  July  26,  1454,  tells  him  to  give  up  the  dream  of  getting  to 
Prague  and  go  to  Frankfort,  where  he  will  be  useful.  An  assem- 
bly of  princes  had  been  held  in  Ratisbon,  where  a  crusade  had 


»  Wadding,  ann.  1453,  No.  9-10;  ann.  1354,  No.  13-13,  17-19.— Chron.  Cor- 
nel. Zantfliet  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  V.  48G-7).— ^n.  Sylvii  Epist.  404  (Ed.  1571, 
p.  947). 


552  THE   HUSSITES. 

been  agreed  upon,  and  Philip  of  Burgundy  had  consented  to  lead 
it.  Final  arrangements  were  to  be  made  in  Frankfort  in  October, 
and  there  ^neas  Sylvius  wanted  the  aid  of  Capistrano's  tireless 
ardor.  Their  correspondence  at  this  juncture  shows  the  terror 
which  existed  lest  Europe  should  be  overrun ;  the  confusion  and 
uncertainty  which  prevailed,  and  the  selfish  differences  which 
threatened  to  neutralize  effort.  At  Frankfort  their  worst  fears 
were  realized.  The  zeal  of  the  princes  had  cooled,  and  they  de- 
clared the  purpose  of  the  pope  and  emperor  was  to  steal  their 
money  and  not  to  fight.  They  demanded  that  the  business  should 
be  conducted  by  a  general  council  which  should  at  the  same  time 
repress  the  Holy  See — in  fact,  both  parties  were  selfishly  endeav- 
oring to  turn  the  agony  of  Europe  to  account ;  the  pope  to  raise 
money,  and  the  princes  to  recover  their  independence.  All  that 
^neas  and  Capistrano  could  obtain  was  a  promise  that  at  the 
Pentecost  of  1455  they  would  meet  the  emperor  and  determine 
what  could  be  done.  In  February  and  March,  1455,  they  began 
to  assemble  at  ISTeuburg,  near  Vienna,  where  Podiebrad  again 
used  every  effort  to  procure  Rokyzana's  confirmation.  As  for  the 
crusade,  the  energies  of  Christendom  seemed  paralyzed  by  the 
petty  jealousies  and  ambitions  of  its  rulers.  At  last,  under  the 
unflagging  eloquence  of  JEneas  and  Capistrano,  things  appeared 
to  be  taking  shape,  when  the  news  was  received  of  the  death  of 
Nicholas  V.  on  March  22.  Everything  fell  to  pieces,  and  the 
princes  departed,  postponing  action  until  the  next  3'^ear.  It  was 
a  forcible  example  of  the  utility  of  the  papacy,  which  supplied  a 
common  head  to  the  discordant  forces  of  the  time.* 

Capistrano's  impetuous  energies  were  now  fairly  enUsted  in 
the  strife  with  the  Turk,  and  the  Hussites  had  a  respite.  In  fact, 
the  situation  was  too  alarming  to  permit  of  their  persecution,  and 
it  is  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  unbending  rigidity  of  Rome, 
that  even  in  this  perilous  juncture  the  overtures  and  concessions 
of  Podiebrad  and  Rokyzana  availed  them  nothing. 

Calixtus  III.  was  elected  April  8,  with  a  speed  which  showed 
how  dangerous  a  papal  interregnum  was  considered.     He  at  once 


*  Wadding,  ann.  1254,  No.  7-12;  ann.  1255,  No.  2-7.— iEn.  Sylv.  Epist.  405 
(p.  947).  —  Ejusd.  Epistt.  xxxix.-xliii.,  xlvi.,  Iviii.,  Ix.  (0pp.  inedd.  pp.  415-24, 
426-9,  440-1,  448). 


VICTORY    OF    BELGRADE.  553 

sent  legates  to  preach  the  crusade  throughout  Europe,  and  com- 
menced to  build  war-ships  on  the  Tiber.  The  Hungarians,  who 
were  justly  excited  at  the  impending  invasion  of  Mahomet  II. 
begged  Capistrano  to  come  to  them  and  use  his  eloquence.  Ca- 
lixtus  gave  him  permission,  confirmed  all  the  powers  conferred 
on  him  by  Nicholas,  and  he  undertook  the  task  which  was  to 
complete  his  life's  work.  Yet  even  these  new  duties,  which 
wrought  his  fiery  soul  to  a  higher  tension  than  ever,  did  not 
wholly  distract  his  attention  from  the  hated  Hussites.  The  junc- 
ture seemed  favorable  for  a  reconciliation,  which  every  motive  of 
pohcy  dictated.  Besides,  ^neas  Sylvius  had  just  been  promoted 
to  the  cardinalate,  and  that  crafty  diplomat  had  succeeded  in 
making  the  Bohemians  look  upon  him  as  their  friend.  They  not 
only  hoped  to  obtain  the  confirmation  of  the  Compactata,  but  the 
cardinal's  hat  for  Rokyzana.  Hearing  of  this,  Capistrano  wrote, 
March  24,  1456,  from  Buda  to  Calixtus  dissuadmg  him  in  the 
most  vigorous  terms.  The  Hussites  are  the  worst  of  mankind, 
fearing  neither  God  nor  man ;  the  heart  can  scarce  conceive  the 
errors  which  they  believe,  or  the  abominations  which  they  prac- 
tise in  secret.  The  Compactata  are  their  sole  bulwark ;  if  these 
are  confirmed,  the  Hussites,  who  abound  secretly,  not  only  in  Bo- 
hemia but  in  Hungary,  Transylvania,  Moldavia,  and  the  neigh- 
boring regions,  will  rise  and  declare  themselves.  The  warning 
was  sufficient  and  the  overtures  were  rejected.* 

Suddenly  the  news  came  that  the  dreaded  Mahomet  II,  was 
advancing,  and  had  laid  siege  to  Belgrade.  Ladislas,  who  was 
King  of  Hungary  as  well  as  of  Bohemia,  was  at  Buda-Pesth,  and 
with  his  uncle,  the  Count  of  Cillei,  on  pretext  of  a  hunting-excur- 
sion, basely  fled  to  Austria.  John  Hunyad}^,  Count  of  Transylva- 
nia, who  had  been  regent  of  the  kingdom,  organized  the  Hunga- 
rian forces,  with  some  German  crusaders  who  had  come  to  his 
assistance,  while  Capistrano  marched  with  him  as  papal  commander 
of  the  crusade.  Glorious  in  the  annals  of  Ilungar}^  is  the  victory 
of  Belgrade.  With  a  flotilla  of  boats  on  the  Danube,  Hunyad}'-, 
on  July  14, 1456,  cut  his  way  into  the  town  through  the  beleaguer- 
inof  forces.  Furious  were  the  attack  and  the  defence  until  the 
22d,  when  a  fierce  assault  by  the  Turks  was  repulsed,  and  the  be- 


•  Wadding,  ann.  1455,  No.  8-13;  ami.  145G,  No.  9-13. 


554  THE    HUSSITES. 

sieged  followed  the  retreating  enemy,  burned  one  of  their  camps, 
spiking  some  of  their  cannon  and  carrying  the  rest  back  into  the 
town,  wliere  they  did  good  service  during  tlie  rest  of  that  memo- 
rable day,  Mahomet  gathered  together  his  forces  for  a  last  des- 
perate attempt,  which  was  a  failure,  and  during  the  night  he  fled, 
leaving  twenty -four  thousand  men  upon  the  held,  and  three  hun- 
dred cannon.  His  army  was  utterly  dispersed,  and  this  disaster, 
aided  by  the  heroic  resistance  of  Scanderbeg  in  Albania,  arrested 
the  Turkish  invasion  and  gave  Europe  a  breathing-spell.  It  cost, 
however,  the  lives  of  the  two  heroes  to  whom  it  was  due.  The 
stench  of  the  dead  bodies  sickened  the  army  of  the  victors,  and 
John  Hunyady  fell  a  victim,  August  11,  to  the  epidemic,  which 
prevented  the  following  up  of  the  advantage.  Capistrano  had 
thrown  himself  into  the  work  with  all  his  self-forgetful  enthusi- 
asm. His  eloquence  had  wrought  the  Christians  up  to  the  highest 
pitch  of  religious  exaltation ;  the  crusaders  would  obey  no  one  but 
him,  and  his  labors  were  incessant.  He  passed  days  without  time 
for  food,  and  nights  without  rest ;  for  seventeen  days,  it  is  said, 
before  the  victory,  he  slept  but  seven  hours  in  all.  He  was  in  his 
seventy-lirst  year,  with  a  frame  weakened  by  habitual  austerities, 
and  when  the  strain  was  past  exhausted  nature  paid  the  penalty. 
A  slow  fever  set  in,  August  6,  under  which  he  wasted  away,  and 
died,  October  23.  He  was  perhaps  the  most  perfect  type  which 
the  age  produced  of  the  ideal  son  of  the  Church ;  a  purely  artifi- 
cial creation,  in  which  the  weakness  of  humanity  disappeared  with 
some  of  its  virtues,  and  the  whole  nature,  with  its  rare  powers, 
was  concentrated  in  unselfish  devotion  to  a  mistaken  purpose. 
Such  men  are  the  tools  of  the  worldly  and  unscrupulous  who  know 
how  to  use  them,  and  for  forty  years  Capistrano  had  been  thus 
employed  to  bring  misery  on  his  fellow-beings,  unconscious  of  the 
e\dl  which  he  wrought.  Yet,  as  ^neas  Sylvius  shrewdly  points 
out,  there  was  one  weak  spot  left  in  his  nature.  In  the  letters 
in  which  he  and  Hunyady  described  the  victory  of  Belgrade  nei- 
ther chief  gave  credit  to  the  other.  As  -^neas  says,  "  Capistrano 
had  despised  the  pomps  of  the  world,  he  had  fled  from  its  delights, 
he  had  trampled  down  avarice,  he  had  overcome  lust,  but  he  could 
not  contemn  glory."  * 

»  Wadding,  ann.  1456,  No.  16-67,  83-4.— ^n.  Sylv.  Hist.  Boliem.  cap.  Ixv. 
Six  several  attempts  were  made,  at  various  times,  to  canonize  Capistrano, 


USELESS    INQUISITORS.  555 

No  one  could  be  found  worthy  to  replace  Capistrano  but  his 
friendly  rival,  Giacomo  della  Marca,  who  was  accordingly  de- 
spatched, in  1457,  to  the  scene  of  his  labors  of  twenty  years  pre 
vious,  armed  with  the  same  powers,  as  inquisitor  and  crusader. 
The  danger  from  the  Turk  was  still  too  pressing  for  him  to  waste 
thought  on  the  former  function,  and  he  devoted  himself  to  stimu- 
lating and  organizing  the  war  against  the  IVEoslem  until  his  health 
gave  way,  and  he  returned  to  Italy,  where,  as  we  have  seen,  he 
not  long  afterwards  had  to  defend  himself  from  a  charge  of  heresy 
brought  by  his  zealous  Dominican  brethren.  He  was  replaced  by 
his  disciples,  Giovanni  da  Tagliacozza  and  Michele  da  Tussicino, 
who  were  followed  in  1461  by  Fra  Gabriele  da  Verona ;  but  though 
Franciscans  still  continued  for  a  generation  to  labor  for  the  con- 
version of  the  Calixtins,  they  had  little  success  in  the  absence  of 
power  to  employ  the  customary  inquisitorial  methods,  of  which 
more  hereafter.* 

In  fact,  the  prospects  of  reducing  Bohemia  to  obedience  were 
steadily  diminishing.     In  the  wildest  uproar  of  the  Hussite  wars 


but  the  fates  were  against  it.  The  earlier  eflForts  were  neutralized  b^'  the  oppo- 
sition of  the  legate,  Nicholas  of  Cusa,  and  the  jealousy  of  the  rival  orders  of  Do- 
minicans and  Conventual  Franciscans.  Repeated  requests  came  from  Germany, 
but  they  remained  unheeded.  In  1463  urgent  letters  were  written  by  Frederic 
III.,  the  Margrave  of  Brandenburg,  and  innumerable  bishops  and  magistrates  of 
cities  from  Cracow  to  Ratisbon;  these  were  intrusted  to  a  Franciscan  friar  to 
take  to  Rome,  but  he  died  on  the  road,  and  confided  them  to  a  knight  of  Assisi. 
The  latter  brought  them  to  his  home,  and  then  departed  for  Germany,  where  he 
died.  The  trunk  containing  them  was  i)iously  preseiTcd  by  his  descendants 
until,  towards  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century.  "Wadding  clianced  to  see  it, 
and  took  the  letters  to  Rome,  in  the  hopes  of  their  still  accomplishing  their  object. 
At  the  inquest  held  by  Leo  X.  a  classified  record  of  the  miracles  wrought  by  the 
thaumaturge  shows,  of  dead  brought  to  life,  more  than  thirty;  of  deaf  made  to 
hear,  three  hundred  and  seventy;  of  blind  restored  to  sight,  one  hundred  and 
twenty-three;  of  cripples  and  gouty  persons  cured,  nine  hundred  and  twenty, 
and  miscellaneous  cases  innumerable.  This  resulted  in  his  admission  to  the  infe- 
rior order  of  the  Blessed,  to  be  worshipped  by  the  Franciscans  of  the  diocese 
of  Capistrano.  In  1623  Gregory  XV.  enlarged  his  cult  to  the  whole  Franciscan 
Order;  and  in  1690  Alexander  VIII.  enrolled  him  in  the  calendar  of  saints.— 
Wadding,  ann.  1456,  No.  114-23;  aun.  1463,  No.  29-78.— Weizfficker,  ap.  Her- 
zog's  Real  Encyklop.  s.  v. 

•  Wadding,  ann.  1457,  No.  5,  10  ;  ann.  1461,  No.  1-2  ;  ann.  1465,  No.  6  ;  ann. 
1467,  No.  5. 


556  THE    HUSSITES. 

there  were  powerful  barons  and  cities  who  steadily  held  out  for 
the  pope  and  kaiser,  and  under  the  interregnum  there  had  at  first 
been  a  dual  government,  shared  equally  by  Catholic  and  Cahxtin. 
Under  the  firm  hand  of  George  Podiebrad  the  orthodox  commu- 
nities submitted  one  by  one,  and  in  spiritual  matters  Eokyzana 
was  supreme.  It  is  true  that  there  was  now  little  to  distinguish 
the  churches  in  doctrine  or  practice  save  the  use  of  the  cup ;  but 
independence  served  as  a  protection  against  the  greed  of  the  Ko- 
man  curia,  and  there  was  small  encouragement  for  a  surrender  of 
this  independence  in  the  clamor  which  was  now  going  up  from 
Germany.  The  Basilian  regulations,  confirmed  by  Eugenius,  had 
for  a  time  served  as  a  safeguard  to  some  extent,  but  now  these 
were  coolly  treated  as  obsolete,  and  complaints  were  loud  that  aU 
the  old  abuses  were  flourishing  as  vigorously  as  ever.  Elections 
were  set  aside,  or  heavy  sums  were  extorted  for  their  confirma- 
tion, while  the  country  was  drained  of  money  by  the  exaction  of 
tenths  and  the  sale  of  indulgences.  Secure  in  their  isolation,  the 
Bohemians  might  well  submit  to  some  inconvenience  to  be  spared 
the  costly  blessing  of  apostolic  paternal  care.  The  only  hope  of 
Eome  lay  in  the  approaching  majority  of  the  Catholic  youth  La- 
dislas  ;  but  when,  on  the  eve  of  his  marriage  with  the  daughter  of 
Charles  VII.  of  France,  he  suddenly  died,  towards  the  close  of  1457, 
not  without  suspicions  of  foul  play,  and  George  Podiel^rad  soon 
afterwards  was  elected  and  crowned,  it  might  weU  seem  that, 
short  of  Divine  interposition,  the  peaceful  return  of  Bohemia  was 
not  to  be  looked  for.* 

Yet  at  first  it  looked  as  though  an  accommodation  might  be 
reached.  Ladislas,  shortly  before  his  death,  had  proposed  to  send 
an  embassy  to  Eome  for  the  purpose  of  efi'ecting  a  reconciliation, 
and  Calixtus  III.  had  asked  of  Podiebrad  to  gratify  his  vehement 
desire  of  seeing  Eokyzana,  whose  high  reputation  was  well  known 
in  Eome.  Podiebrad,  moreover,  caused  himself  to  be  crowned 
according  to  the  Eoman  rite ;  having  no  bishop  of  his  own,  he 

•  ^n.  Sylvii  Epist.  162,  324,  334-5,  337-40,  356,  869,  387  (Ed.  1571,  pp.  714, 
815,  821-22,  825,  831,  837,  840).— Ejusd.  Hist.  Bolaem.  c.  71-2. 

Pius  n.  did  not  hesitate  to  publish  tn  Christendom  a  positive  assertion  that 
George  poisoned  Ladislas,  and  said  that,  though  the  facts  were  obscure,  the 
Viennese  phj'sicians  in  attendance  attributed  his  death  to  poison. — ^u.  Sylv, 
Epist.  Ixxi.  COpp-  iuedd.  p.  467). 


^NEAS    SYLVIUS    AS    POPE.  557 

borrowed  from  his  son-in-law,  Matthias  Corvinus  of  Hungary, 
those  of  Kaab  and  Bacs,  to  perform  his  consecration  ;  in  his  coro- 
nation oath  he  swore  obedience  to  Calixtus  and  his  successors,  to 
restore  the  Cathohc  religion,  and  to  persecute  heretics ;  he  wrote 
to  Cahxtus  as  a  faithful  son  of  the  Church,  and  obtained  from  him 
letters  recognizing  him  as  King  of  Bohemia ;  he  sent  envoys  to 
Kome,  who  held  out  promises  that  Kokyzana  would  follow,  and 
settle  on  a  lasting  basis  the  submission  of  Bohemia.  All  this  was 
mere  skirmishing  for  position ;  but  when,  a  few  months  later,  Ca- 
lixtus died,  and  was  succeeded  by  ^neas  Sylvius,  who  took  the 
name  of  Pius  II,,  men  might  hope  that  some  reasonable  accommo- 
dation could  be  reached.  Since  he  had  gone  to  Basle  in  the  suite  of 
Cardinal  Capranica,  and  had  become  the  mouth-piece  of  the  anti- 
papal  party,  influenced,  as  he  himself  says,  by  cupidity  rather  than 
by  truth,  and  inspired  by  the  hostility  to  the  Church  usually  felt 
by  the  laity,  the  new  pope  had  been  occupied  almost  exclusively 
with  German  and  Bohemian  affairs,  which  he  knew  better  than 
any  living  man ;  he  had  taken  part  in  the  negotiations  resulting 
in  the  Compactata ;  he  was  shrewd,  clear-headed,  and  troubled 
with  few  scruples,  and,  sharing  fully  in  the  papal  anxiety  to  unite 
Christendom  against  the  Turks,  he  might  be  expected  to  recognize 
the  vital  importance  of  reconciliation  with  Bohemia.  George 
made  haste  to  send  an  embassy  to  renew  his  protestations  of  obe- 
dience, and  to  ask  for  the  confirmation  of  the  Compactata.  Pius, 
who  took  no  shame  in  issuino:  a  solemn  bull  condemnino;  and  dis- 
avowing  aU  his  early  opinions  uttered  during  his  service  \vith  the 
council,  was  prepared  to  break  with  his  own  traditions  rather  than 
with  those  of  his  predecessors.  He  gave  a  dubious  response; 
George  could  win  his  recognition  as  king  by  extirpating  heresy, 
and  he  promised  to  send  legates.  They  came,  but  the  poj^e,  al- 
though he  addressed  George  as  king  and  as  his  dearest  son  when 
soliciting  his  co-operation  in  the  crusade,  shortly  afterwards  took  a 
step  which,  with  his  knowledge  of  Bohemia,  he  knew  could  not  but 
provoke  a  rupture.  Wenceslas,  Dean  of  Prague,  was  a  Catholic, 
and  a  bitter  enemy  of  Kokyzana,  and  this  man  Pius  apjiointcd  as 
administrator  of  the  archbishopric,  thus  ousting  lioky/.ana.  All 
at  once  was  in  uproar.  Wenceslas  endeavored  to  assort  liinisolf, 
but  the  power  remained  in  Rokyzana's  hands,  (icorge  threw  into 
prison  Fantinus,  who  had  been  his  procurator  in  the  curia,  and 


558  THE    HUSSITES. 

who  had  been  sent  with  a  commission  as  papal  orator,  and  de- 
tained him  there  for  three  months.  Frederic  III.,  whom  George, 
by  a  stroke  of  happy  audacity,  had  recently  liberated  from  a  siege 
by  his  rebellious  subjects  in  the  castle  of  Vienna,  interposed,  and 
delayed  the  explosion  of  the  papal  wrath;  but  to  his  earnest  re- 
quest that  George  should  be  acknowledged  as  king  Pius  returned 
an  absolute  refusal.  George  was  a  heretic,  incapable  of  the  crown, 
and  his  subjects'  oaths  of  allegiance  were  void ;  only  by  returning 
to  the  Church  could  he  hope  to  be  fitted  for  the  royal  dignity. 
In  June,  1464,  Pius,  in  full  consistory,  published  a  bull  reciting 
all  the  griefs  of  the  Church  against  Bohemia,  pronouncing  the 
Compactata  void,  as  never  having  been  confirmed  by  the  Holy 
See,  and  summoning  George  before  him  to  stand  trial  for  heresy 
within  three  terms  of  sixty  days  each.  In  two  months  Pius  was 
dead,  but  his  successor,  Paul  II.,  carried  forward  the  proceedings 
with  the  old  inquisitorial  weapons.  Three  cardinals  were  ap- 
pointed in  1465  to  try  George  as  a  relapsed  heretic,  and  summoned 
him  in  August,  as  a  private  person,  to  appear  before  them  within 
six  months  for  judgment.  Without  waiting  for  the  expiration 
of  the  term,  early  in  December,  Paul  issued  a  bull  absolving  aU 
George's  subjects  from  their  allegiance,  alleging  as  a  reason  for 
haste  that  the  sentence  would  grow  more  difficult  by  delay.  The 
papal  wrath  increased  with  the  obstinacy  of  the  assumed  heretic. 
In  1468  another  summons  was  issued  to  him  to  appear  before  the 
cardinals  for  judgment ;  and  in  February,  1469,  his  name  was 
placed  as  that  son  of  perdition,  the  Hussite  George  Podiebrad, 
together  with  those  of  Eokyzana  and  Gregory  of  Heimburg,  in 
the  curse  of  the  Coena  Domini,  to  be  anathematized  tlirice  a  year, 
in  the  solemnities  of  the  mass,  in  all  cathedrals,  both  in  Latin  and 
in  the  vernacular.* 

All  this  was  not  a  mere  hrutum  fulmen.    It  was  not  difficult 


•  ^n.  Sjlvii  Hist.  Bohem.  c.  69.— Ejusd.  Epist.  Ixxi.  (0pp.  inedd.  pp.  4G1- 
70).— Ejusd.  Tractatus  (lb.  pp.  566,  581).— Rayuald.  anu.  1457,  No.  69;  ann. 
1458,  No.  20-8;  ann.  1459,  No.  18-23;  anu.  1463,  No.  96-102.— Cochlsei  Hist. 
Lib.  xii.— Dubrav.  Hist.  Bohem.  Lib.  30.— Wadding,  ann,  1462,  No.  87.— Pii 
PP.  n.  Bull.  In  minoribus.  —  Sommersberg  Silesiac.  Rer.  Scriptt.  H.  1025-6, 
1031.  — Wadding,  ann.  1456,  No.  12;  ann.  1469,  No.  4,  6.  — Ludewig  Reliq. 
MSS.  VL  61.  — Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  L  1598-9.  — D'Achery  Spicileg.  HI.  830-4. 
— Ripoll  m.  466. 


ANOMALOUS    POSITION    OP    BOHEMIA.  559 

to  excite  rebellion  among  turbulent  subjects  and  attacks  from  am- 
bitious neighbors.  With  all  his  vigor  and  capacity  George  found 
the  maintenance  of  his  position  by  no  means  easy.  When,  in 
1468,  the  German  princes  had  agreed  upon  a  five  years'  truce  in 
order  to  concentrate  their  energies  against  the  Moslem,  Paul  II. 
threw  the  empire  into  confusion  by  sending  the  Bishop  of  Ferrara 
to  preach  a  crusade  with  plenary  indulgences  against  Bohemia, 
adding  the  si)ecial  favor  that  all  who  joined  in  the  preaching 
should  have  the  privilege  of  choosing  a  confessor,  and  receiving 
from  him  plenary  absolution  and  indulgence.  The  kingdom  was 
bestowed  upon  Matthias  Corvinus  of  Hungary,  who  took  the 
cross,  and  with  an  army  of  crusaders  occupied  Moravia.  A  long 
war  ensued,  during  which  George  died,  in  1471,  released  from  ex- 
communication on  his  death-bed,  and  Ladislas  II.,  son  of  Casimir 
of  Poland,  was  elected  as  his  successor.  In  1475  the  rivals  came 
to  terms ;  both  -were  recognized  as  kings  of  Bohemia,  while  Mat- 
thias was  to  have  for  life  Moravia,  Silesia,  and  the  greater  part  of 
Lusatia,  and  the  survivor  was  to  enjoy  the  whole  kingdom.  On 
the  death  of  Matthias,  in  1490,  Ladislas  recovered  the  three  prov- 
inces, and  shortly  afterwards  added  Hungary  to  his  dominions.* 

Ladislas  was  a  good  Catholic,  and  Sixtus  IV.,  who  had  aided 
in  his  election,  hoped  that  the  opportunity  had  at  last  arrived  to 
break  down  the  stubbornness  of  the  Calixtins.  The  king  made 
the  attempt,  but  bloody  tumults  in  Prague,  which  nearly  cost  him 
his  life,  showed  that,  slight  as  was  the  difference  between  Cath- 
olic and  Utraquist,  the  old  fanaticism  for  the  cup  survived.  At 
length,  in  1485,  at  the  Diet  of  Kuttenberg,  mutual  toleration  was 
agreed  upon,  and  Ladislas,  who  was  of  easy  disposition,  ran  no 
further  risks.  Thus  the  anomalous  position  of  Bohemia,  as  a 
member  of  Latin  Christendom,  became  more  remarkable  than 
ever.  The  great  majority  of  the  people  were  Calixtins  and  there- 
fore heretics,  but  the  Church  had  to  abandon  the  attempt  to  co- 
erce them  to  salvation.  Missionary  inquisitors  were  commissioned 
from  time  to  time,  but  practically  their  efforts  were  limited  to 
persuasion  and  controversy.  Even  Pius  II.,  in  14G3,  felt  obliged 
to  caution  Zeger,  the  Observantine  Vicar-general,  that  his  breth- 


*  Raynald.  ann.  1468,  No.  1-14.— Chron.  Glassbcrger  nnn.   1468.— 'Dubrav. 
Hist.  Bohem.  Libb.  XXX. -XXXI.— Cocblaei  Hist.  Hussit.  Lib.  xii.  ann.  1471. 


560  THE    HUSSITES. 

ren,  in  dealing  with  heretics,  should  restrain  their  zeal  from  the 
customary  curses  and  insults,  and  should  try  the  effect  of  gentle- 
ness and  argument.  That  these  missionaries  were  mostly  Fran- 
ciscans perhaps  explains  why  the  toleration  accorded  to  Catholics 
could  not  be  enforced  against  the  popular  prejudices  of  which  the 
Order  was  the  object.  Even  George  Podiebrad,  in  1460,  had  per- 
mitted the  Franciscans  to  return  to  Prague,  but  their  zeal  was  not 
to  be  restrained,  and  they  were  expelled  in  1468.  Under  Ladislas 
they  came  again,  in  1482,  but  in  the  disturbances  of  the  following 
year  they  were  glad  to  escape,  their  house  was  levelled  to  the 
ground,  and  was  not  rebuilt  until  1629.  From  time  to  time  other 
communities  were  founded  at  Hradecz,  Glatz,  and  Neisse,  but  they 
were  short-lived,  and  were  speedily  destroyed  by  the  fanaticism  of 
the  people.  As  the  invention  of  printing  facilitated  controversy, 
polemical  zeal  multipMed  treatises  to  prove  the  iniquity  of  the  Utra- 
quist  heresy,  but  the  Utraquists  were  not  to  be  converted.  They 
maintained  the  Compactata  as  the  charter  of  their  religious  inde- 
pendence. When,  in  1526,  King  Louis  fell  in  the  disastrous  day 
of  Mohacz,  and  the  House  of  Austria,  in  the  person  of  Ferdinand 
I.,  obtained  the  Bohemian  throne,  good  CathoHc  though  Ferdinand 
was,  he  was  obliged  to  pledge  himself  to  preserve  the  Compac- 
tata.* 

It  is  not  to  be  imagined  that  the  teachings  of  "WickUlff  and 
Huss  were  wholly  forgotten  in  Utraquist  degeneracy.  Their  real 
inheritors  were  the  Taborites,  and  although  these,  in  their  disorder- 
ly enthusiasm,  vainly  contended  against  the  spirit  of  the  age  and 
disappeared  from  sight  under  the  strong  hand  of  Podiebrad,  the  seed 
which  they  had  nurtured  was  not  wholly  lost.  The  profound  re- 
ligious convictions  which  animated  these  poor  and  simple  folk  are 
visible  through  the  satire  with  which  yEneas  Sylvius  requited  their 
hospitality  in  1451,  on  the  eve  of  their  suppression.  Travelling 
with  some  nobles,  on  a  mission  from  Frederic  III.,  he  was  be- 


•  Wadding,  ann.  1460,  No.  55 ;  ann.  1463,  No.  87 ;  ann.  1471,  No.  5;  ann.  1475, 
No.  28,  37-9 ;  ann.  1489,  No.  21 ;  ann.  1491,  No.  8,  78.  —  Chron.  Glassberger  ann. 
1463, 1466, 1479,  1483.  —  Dubrav.  Hist.  Bohem.  Lib.  xxxi.  —  De  Schweinitz,  Hist, 
of  Unitas  Fratrum,  p.  168.  — Camerarii  Hist.  Frat.  Ortbod.  pp.  72-3.  — Georgisch 
Regest.  Chron.  Diploni.  TTI.  158. 


THE    TABORITES.  — TIIEIII    DISPERSION.  561 

nighted  near  Mount  Tabor,  and  thought  it  safer  to  trust  himself 
with  the  enemies  of  his  faith  than  to  pass  the  hours  of  darkness 
in  the  open  villages.  In  return  for  the  simple  kindliness  of  his 
reception  the  polished  scholar  and  courtier  describes  them  with 
the  liveliest  ridicule,  and  with  brutal  sneers  at  their  poverty.  They 
were  mostly  peasants,  and  as  they  came  forth  to  greet  him  in  the 
cold  and  rain,  many  were  almost  naked,  having  nothing  but  a 
shirt  or  a  sheepskin  to  protect  them ;  one  had  no  saddle,  another  no 
reins,  another  no  spurs ;  this  one  had  lost  an  eye,  that  one  an  arm. 
Ziska  was  their  patron  saint,  whose  j)ortrait  was  painted  on  the 
city  gates.  Though  they  ridiculed  the  consecration  of  churches, 
they  were  very  earnest  in  listening  to  the  word  of  God,  and  if  any 
one  was  too  busy  or  too  lazy  to  go  to  the  wooden  house  where 
they  assembled  for  preaching  he  was  compelled  by  stripes.  Though 
they  paid  no  tithes,  they  filled  their  priests'  houses  with  corn, 
beer,  wood,  vegetables,  meat,  and  all  the  necessaries  of  hfe.  Firm 
as  they  were  in  defence  of  their  religious  independence,  they  were 
not  intolerant,  and  wide  diversity  of  opinion  was  allowed  among 
them.* 

When  such  men  as  these  were  driven  forth  and  scattered 
among  the  people  they  were  much  more  likely  to  make  converts 
than  to  be  converted,  and  though  lost  to  sight  they  were  assuredly 
not  false  to  their  convictions.  The  reactionary  course  of  Eoky- 
zana  and  Podiebrad  during  the  succeeding  years  could  hardly  fail 
to  provoke  discontent  among  the  more  earnest  even  of  the  Calix- 
tins  and  to  furnish  fresh  disciples  and  teachers.  Materials  existed 
for  a  sect  representing  the  doctrines  which,  a  generation  earlier, 
had  set  Bohemia  aflame ;  and  although  when  that  sect  timidly 
appeared  it  prudently  and  sedulously  disavowed  all  affiliation  with 
the  hated  and  dreaded  Taborites,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it 
was,  to  a  great  extent,  composed  of  the  same  elements. 

These  new  sectaries  first  present  themselves  in  an  organized 
form  in  1-157.  Earnest,  humble  Christians,  who  sought  to  carry 
out  the  doctrines  of  Jesus,  they  differed  from  the  Taborites  in  a 
yet  closer  approach  to  Waldensianism,  due  probably  to  the  influ- 
ence of  Peter  Chelcicky,  who,  witliout  belonging  to  them,  was  yet 
to  some  extent  their  teacher.     Like  the  AV^aldenses,  they  rejected 


•  iEn.  Sylvii  Epist.  130  (Ed.  1571  pp.  G61-2). 
II.— 36 


562  THE   HUSSITES. 

the  oath  and  the  sword — nothing  would  justify  the  taking  of  hu- 
man  Hfe,  and  consequently  they  w^ere  non-resistants.  Since  the 
time  of  Constantine  and  Silvester  the  Iloinan  Church  had  gone 
astray  in  the  pursuit  of  wealth  and  worldly  power.  The  sacra- 
ments were  worthless  in  polluted  hands.  Priests  might  hear  con- 
fessions and  impose  penances,  but  they  could  not  absolve ;  they 
could  only  announce  the  forgiveness  of  God.  Purgatory  was  a 
myth  invented  by  cunning  priests.  As  for  the  mystery  of  the 
Eucharist,  they  prudently  adopted  the  formula  of  Peter  Chelcicky, 
which  eluded  the  difficulty  by  affirming  that  the  believer  receives 
the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  without  pretending  to  explain  or 
daring  to  discuss  the  matter.  They  ridiculed  the  superstition  of 
the  Calixtins,  which  exaggerated  in  the  absurdest  fashion  the  sanc- 
tity of  the  Eucharist,  which  carried  the  sacrament  through  the 
streets  for  adoration,  and  which  held  that  he  whose  eye  chanced 
to  fall  on  it  was  safe  from  evil  happening  for  that  day ;  and  they 
sometimes  incurred  martyrdom  by  publicly  reproving  the  fanatic 
zeal  which  regarded  the  Eucharist  as  the  holiest  of  idols.  On  this 
basis  was  founded  the  brotherhood  of  love  and  charity,  of  patient 
endurance  and  meekness,  which  represented  more  nearly  the 
Christian  ideal  than  anything  the  world  had  seen  for  thirteen 
centuries.  With  extreme  simplicity  of  life  there  was  no  exagger- 
ation of  asceticism.  Heaven  was  not  to  be  stormed  by  mortifica- 
tion of  the  flesh,  but  was  to  be  won  by  the  sedulous  discharge  of 
the  duties  imposed  on  man  by  his  Creator,  in  humble  obedience 
to  the  divine  will,  and  in  pious  rehance  on  Christ.  Such  was  the 
"Unitas  Fratrum"  —  the  Bohemian  or  Moravian  Brotherhood — 
and  that  a  society  thus  defenceless  and  unresisting  should  endure 
the  savage  vicissitudes  of  that  transitional  period,  and  maintain 
itself  through  four  hundred  years  to  the  present  tune,  shows  that 
force  is  not  necessarily  the  last  word  in  human  affairs,  and  that 
average  human  nature  is  capable  of  a  higher  moral  development 
than  it  has  been  permitted  to  reach  under  prevailing  influences, 
secular  and  spiritual.* 


•  Goll,  Quellen  u.  Untersuchimgen,  1. 10,  32-33,  92, 99 ;  II.  72,  87-88,  94.— De 
Schweinitz,  Hist,  of  Unitas  Fratrum,  pp.  111-12,  159,  204-5. — Von  Zezschwitz, 
Real-Encyklnp.  II.  652-3.— Hist.  Persecutionum  pp.  58-60,  90.— Palacky,  Die  Be- 
aiehuugen  der  Waldenser,  pp.  32-33. — Camerarii  Hist.  Frat.  Orthod.  pp.  59-66.— 


THE    BOHEMIAN    BRETHREN.  5G3 

At  first  they  seem  to  have  enjoyed  the  favor  of  Rokyzana, 
whose  doctrines  they  claimed  to  follow,  and  whose  nephew  Greg- 
ory was  one  of  their  earliest  leaders,  along  with  Michael,  priest 
of  Zamberg.  Rokyzana's  fluctuating  policy,  as  the  archbishopric 
seemed  to  approach  or  recede,  soon  led  him  to  hold  aloof,  and 
when  they  drew  apart  from  the  Calixtins  and  organized  them- 
selves as  a  separate  body  he  had  no  objection  to  see  them  perse- 
cuted. In  vain  they  declared  that  they  were  neither  Waldenses 
nor  Taborites — the  one  was  a  word  of  bitter  reproach,  the  other  a 
terror.  "When,  about  1461,  Gregory,  with  a  few  companions, 
ventured  secretly  to  Prague,  they  were  betrayed  as  conspu'ing 
Taborites  and  put  to  the  torture.  It  shows  their  state  of  reUg- 
ious  exaltation  that  Gregory  swooned  on  the  rack  and  had  a  bea- 
tific vision.  It  may  be  put  to  the  credit  of  Rokyzana  that  when 
he  saw  his  nephew  insensible  from  the  torture  he  burst  into  tears, 
exclaiming,  "  O  my  Gregory,  I  would  I  were  Avhere  thou  art !" 
and  that  he  soon  afterwards  obtained  from  Podiebrad  pennission 
for  them  to  settle  at  Liticz.  Here  they  prospered  amid  alternate 
peace  and  persecution,  their  numbers  rapidly  increasing.* 

In  retaining  all  the  sacraments  they  retained  belief  in  the  ne- 
cessity of  apostohcal  succession  for  that  of  ordination ;  but  as  the 
sacraments  were  vitiated  in  unworthy  hands,  they  became  op- 
pressed with  misgivings  as  to  the  efficacy  of  the  sacerdotal  char- 
acter of  their  priests,  derived  as  it  was  through  the  Church  of 
Rome.  Some  of  them  proposed  sending  to  the  legendary  Chris- 
tians of  India,  but  they  met  with  two  men  who  had  been  in  the 
East,  and  the  accounts  they  received  of  the  Oriental  churches  sat- 
isfied them  that  the  succession  there  had  been  lost.  Then  they 
bethought  them  of  the  Greeks,  but  they  met  some  Greeks  in 


For  the  Calixtin  views  on  the  Eucharist  see  the  treatises  of  Rokyzana  and  of 
John  of  Przibram  in  Cochlaei  Hist.  Ilussit.  pp.  474,  508 ;  also  the  latter's  articles 
against  Peter  Payne  (lb.  230). 

When  the  Brethren  undertook  to  explain  their  views  on  the  Eucharist  they 
become  somewhat  difficult  to  understand.  The  bread  and  wine  became  the  body 
and  blood,  and  they  would  have  believed  it  had  the  bread  been  stone,  but  still 
the  substance  remained,  and  Christ  was  not  present. — Fascic.  Rer.  Expetend.  et 
Fugieud.  I.  165,  170,  174,  183,  185. 

•  Camerarii  Hist.  Frat.  Orthod.  pp.  84-9.  —  Hist.  Persecut.  p.  05.  —Von  Zez- 
schwitz,  1.  c.  p.  653-4. 


564  THE    HUSSITES. 

Prague,  and  many  Bohemians  had  been  in  the  Levant  and  Danu- 
bian  provinces,  from  whom  they  learned  that  fees  were  required 
for  ordination,  thus  rendering  it  void  through  simony ;  moreover, 
they  heard  of  three  Bohemians  who  had  been  ordained  without 
inquiry  as  to  their  morals,  which  satisfied  them  that  no  true  ordi- 
nation was  to  be  obtained  there.  Finally  they  turned  to  the  Wal- 
denses,  of  whom  there  was  a  community  on  the  Austrian  border. 
These  claimed  to  descend  from  the  primitive  Church ;  that  their 
ancestors  had  separated  from  Rome  when  the  papacy  was  secular- 
ized under  Silvester  by  the  donation  of  Constantine,  and  that  they 
had  preserved  the  apostolic  succession  untainted.  It  remained  for 
the  brethren  to  see  whether  it  was  the  will  of  God  that  they 
should  organize  themselves  by  means  of  these  "Waldenses.  At 
Lhotka,  in  1467,  an  assembly  of  about  sixty  chosen  deputies  was 
held.  After  fasting  and  earnest  prayer,  recourse  was  had  to  the 
lot,  to  decide  whether  they  should  separate  themselves  from  the 
Roman  priesthood.  The  result  was  affirmative.  Then  they  se- 
lected nine  men,  from  among  whom  three  or  two  or  one  should 
be  drawn,  or  none,  if  God  so  willed  it.  Twelve  cards  were  taken, 
on  three  of  which  was  written  "  is,"  and  on  nine  "  is  not."  These 
were  mingled  together,  and  a  youth  was  directed  to  distribute 
nine  of  them  among  the  men  selected.  All  three  with  "  is  "  proved 
to  have  been  distributed,  and  the  assembly  devoutly  thanked  God 
for  showing  them  the  path  to  follow.  Michael  of  Zamberg  was 
sent  to  the  Waldensian  Bishop  Stephen,  who  investigated  his  faith 
and  life,  and  thanked  God,  with  tears,  that  it  had  been  vouchsafed 
him  before  he  died  to  see  such  pious  men.  After  episcopal  conse- 
cration Michael  returned ;  careful  inquiry  was  made  as  to  the  an- 
tecedents of  one  of  the  three  elect,  named  Matthias,  and  he  was 
duly  consecrated  as  bishop  by  Michael,  who  thereupon  laid  down 
both  his  Waldensian  episcopate  and  Catholic  priesthood,  and  was 
again  ordained  anew  by  Matthias.* 

*  Wie  sich  die  Menscben  u.  s.  w.  (Goll,  II.  99-100). — Das  Buch  der  Prager  Ma- 
gister  (lb.  104-5). 

Tbe  Calixtins  had  the  same  trouble  about  the  apostolic  succession.  A  letter 
frona  the  Church  of  Constantinople,  in  1451,  warmly  urging  union,  and  oflFering  to 
supply  spiritual  pastors,  shows  tliat  overtures  had  been  made  to  the  Greek  Church 
to  remove  the  difficulty;  but  apparently  the  Bohemians  were  not  prepared  to 
cut  loose  definitely  from  Catholicism  (Flac.  Illyr.  Catal,  Test.  Veritatis.  Lib.  xix. 


i 


THE   BOHEMIAN    BRETHREN.  565 

Thus  all  connection  with  Kome  was  sundered,  and  intimate  re- 
lations were  established  with  the  Waldenses.  Mutual  sympathy 
and  the  identity  of  their  faith  drew  the  two  sects  together,  al- 
though the  austere  virtue  of  the  Brethren  reproached  the  older 
heretics  with  concealing  their  faith  by  attending  Catholic  mass, 
with  accumulating  wealth,  and  with  neglecting  the  poor.  The 
Waldenses  took  the  reproof  kindly,  promised  amendment,  and  in 
a  short  time  the  two  sects  united  and  formed  one  body.  Although 
the  official  name  remained  the  "  Unity  of  the  Brethren,"  gradually 
the  despised  term  of  Waldenses  came  to  be  recognized,  and  was 
freely  used  by  the  body  to  designate  themselves,  in  their  confes- 
sions of  faith  and  apologetic  tracts.  I  have  already  alluded  to 
the  mission  which  was  sent  in  1498  to  the  Brethren  of  Italy  and 
France,  and  to  the  increased  spirit  of  vigor  and  independence 
which  the  old  Alpine  communities  drew  from  the  resolute  stead- 
fastness of  their  new  associates.* 

Gregory  had  moulded  the  Church  of  the  Brethren  on  the 
strictest  basis.  Members  on  entering  were  not,  it  is  true,  obliged 
to  contribute  their  property  to  the  common  fund,  but  this  was 
frequently  done.  The  closest  watch  was  kept  on  the  conduct  of 
each,  and  any  dereliction  was  visited  with  expulsion,  not  to  be  re- 
voked without  evidence  of  change  of  heart.  No  one  was  allowed 
to  take  an  oath,  even  in  court,  to  hold  an  office,  to  keep  an  inn,  to 
follow  any  trade  except  in  the  necessaries  of  life.  Any  noble  de- 
siring to  join  was  required  to  lay  aside  his  rank  and  resign  what- 
ever offices  he  might  hold.  In  1479  tAvo  barons  and  several 
knights  applied  for  admission,  when  the  rules  were  strictly  en- 
forced, and  some  submitted  while  others  withdrew.  This  rigor  at 
last  caused  violent  dissensions,  and  in  1490  the  Synod  of  Brandeis 
relaxed  the  rules.  The  puritan  party  recalcitrated  and  were  strong 
enough  to  cause  a  revocation  of  this  action  in  a  subsequent  synod. 


p.  1834-5,  Ed.  1608).  The  trouble  was  renewed  after  the  death  of  Rokyzana. 
At  length,  in  1482,  Agostino  Luciano,  an  Italian  bishop,  came  to  Prague  in  search 
of  a  purer  religion,  and  was  joyfully  received.  He  served  them  until  1493,  when 
he  died.  Then  Filippo,  Bishop  of  Sidon,came,  but  after  three  years  he  was  re- 
called by  the  pope.  In  1499  a  mission  was  sent  to  Armenia,  where  some  of  them 
were  ordained. — Hist.  Persecutinnum  pp.  95-6. 

*  Goll,  op.  cit.  II.  101.— De  Schweinitz,  op.  cit.  p.  156,  200-1.— fidouard  Mon- 
tet,  Hist.  Litt.  des  Vaudois,  pp.  152, 156. 


566  THE    HUSSITES. 

Much  ill-feeling  was  generated,  until,  in  1495,  at  the  Synod  of 
Reichenau,  there  was  mutual  forgiveness  and  a  moderation  of  the 
rules.  Yet  two  of  the  puritan  leaders,  Jacob  of  Wodnan  and 
Amos  of  Stekna,  refused  to  accept  the  compromise,  and  founded 
the  sect  known  as  Amosites,  or  the  Little  Party,  which  maintained 
a  separate  existence  for  forty-six  years.* 

During  this  period  the  Brethren  had  been  subjected  to  repeated 
and  severe  persecution.  Sometimes  driven  for  refuge  to  the  moun- 
tain and  forest,  whence  they  earned  the  name  of  Jamnici,  or  cave- 
dwellers,  they  counted  their  roll  of  martyrs  who  had  testified  in 
the  dungeon  or  at  the  stake  to  the  strength  of  their  convictions. 
Yet  the  httle  band  steadily  grew.  In  the  year  1500  it  was  deemed 
necessary  to  increase  the  number  of  bishops  to  four.  In  Bohemia 
and  Moravia  they  counted  between  three  hundred  and  four  hun- 
dred churches  with  nearly  two  hundred  thousand  members.  There 
were  few  villages  and  scarce  any  towns  in  which  they  were  not 
to  be  found,  and  they  had  poAverf ul  protectors  among  the  nobihty, 
who,  by  the  enslavement  of  the  peasants  in  1487,  had  become 
practically  independent  and  able  to  shelter  them  during  periods  of 
persecution.  The  Bretliren  were  active  in  education  and  in  the 
use  of  the  press.  Every  parish  had  its  school,  and  there  were 
higher  institutions  of  learning,  especially  at  Jungbunzlau  and  Li- 
tomysl.  Of  the  six  Bohemian  printing-offices  they  possessed  three, 
while  the  Catholics  had  but  one  and  the  Cahxtins  two.  Of  the 
sixty  books  issued  in  Bohemia  between  1500  and  1510,  fifty  were 
printed  by  the  Brethren.f 

From  this  period  until  the  death  of  Ladislas,  in  1516,  they  were 
subjected  to  intermittent  but  severe  persecution,  especially  in  Bo- 
hemia. Ladislas,  in  his  wiU,  left  instructions  for  their  extermina- 
tion "  for  the  sake  of  his  soul's  salvation  and  of  the  true  faith ;" 
but  the  minority  of  his  son  Louis,  only  ten  years  old,  the  breaking- 
out  of  disturbances,  and  the  feuds  between  Catholic  and  CaUxtin 
brought  them  peace.  The  exiled  pastors  returned,  the  churches 
were  reopened,  and  public  service  was  resumed.  With  the  rise  of 
Lutheranism  and  the  negotiations  between  the  Bohemians  and 


*  De  ScUweinitz,  op.  cit.  pp.  123-7, 172-5, 180-1. 

t  Hist.  Persecut.  Eccles.  Bohem.  pp.  63-66,  73-4.— Ripoll  IH.  577.— Camerarii 
Hist.  Frat.  Ortliod.  pp.  104-22.— De  Schweiuitz,  op.  cit.  170,  235-6.— Von  Zez- 
Bchwitz,  Real-Encyklop.  II.  656-7, 660. 


THE    BOHEMIAN    BRETHREN.  567 

the  German  Protestants  their  history  passes  beyond  our  present 
horizon,  except  to  allude  to  the  fidelity  with  which  they  endure  ! 
the  shocks  of  the  counter-Reformation,  and  succeeded  in  transmit- 
ting to  our  own  time  the  lessons  which  they  had  learned  from 
Peter  Waldo  and  John  Wickliff.  They  In-ouglit  ac.-oss  the  At- 
lantic the  union  of  fearless  zeal  with  the  gentler  Christian  virtues, 
and  in  the  annals  of  Pennsylvania  the  name  of  Moravian  came  to 
represent  all  that  serves  as  the  firmest  and  surest  foundation  of 
social  organization.  Parkman  has  well  indicated  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  civilizing  influence  of  the  kindly  Moravian  missionaries 
and  the  manner  in  which  their  Jesuit  rivals  were  content  to  sub- 
stitute the  cross  as  a  fetich  in  place  of  the  medicine-bag.  The 
same  well-directed  enthusiasm  endures  to  the  present  day.  Small 
as  is  the  Moravian  Church,  it  maintained  in  1885  no  less  than  three 
hundred  and  nineteen  missionaries  scattered  among  the  remote 
places  of  the  earth,  with  over  eighty-one  thousand  native  converts 
as  church  members;  and  the  more  rugged  and  inhospitable  the 
fields  of  labor  the  more  earnest  the  zeal  of  the  good  Brethren. 
But  for  them  the  savage  coasts  of  Greenland  would  be  almost 
destitute  of  Christian  teaching,  and  in  their  truly  apostolic  work 
we  may  recognize  that  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  of  Constance  was 
not  shed  in  vain.* 

*  Parkman's  Montcalm,  H.  144-5. — I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  Bishop  De  Schwei- 
nitz  the  statistics  of  the  Moravian  Missions. 


APPENDIX. 


Excommunication  of  the  Magistrates  of  Toulouse,  July  24, 1237. 

(Doat,  XXI.  fol.  146.) 

Manifestum  sit  omnibus  tam  presentibus  quam  futuris  quod  nos  frater  Ste- 
phanus  de  ordine  fratruin  Minorum  et  frater  Guillielmus  A.  de  ordine  fratrum  Pre- 
dicatorum  inquisitores  instituti  ad  faciendam  inquisitionem  contra  hereticos, 
fautores,  receptatores  et  deflfensores  hereticorum  Tholose  et  in  tota  diocesi  Tho- 
losana;  cum  per  diligentem  inquisitionem  a  nobis  factam  constiterit  nobis  R. 
Centulli  et  Sicardum  de  Tholosa  et  R.  Rogerii  et  Alamannum  de  Roaxio  et  R. 
Embruni  et  Ondradam  uxorem  Arnaldi  Petrarii  infectos  esse  heretica  pravitate, 
per  sententiam  difRnitivam  cos  esse  hereticos  condemnaverimus,  Petrum  de  Tho- 
losa vicarium  Tholose  et  capitularios  Tholose  diligenter  et  legitime  tam  per  nos 
quam  per  alios  admonuimus  ut  dictos  hereticos  caperent  et  de  dictis  hereticis 
facerent  quod  est  de  hereticis  faciendum ;  cumi  gitur  vicarius  et  capitularii,  ue- 
glectis  et  contemptis  omnibus  supradictis  admonitionibus  a  nobis  factis,  nou  solum 
non  ceperunt  eos  nee  de  terra  eos  fugaverunt,  vel  eorum  bona  occupaverunt  ut 
tenentur,  sed  etiam  in  periculum  animarum  suarum  et  in  prejudicium  fidei,paci3 
et  ecclesie  R.  Rogerii  et  Alamannum  de  Roaxio  predictos  hereticos  condemnatos 
tolerant  et  sustinent  in  stratis  publicis  circa  Tholosam  et  aliis  locis  eorum  juris- 
dictioni  subditis,  capere  viros  religiosos  et  clericos  ac  eorum  bonis  propriis  spo- 
liare  et  ad  redemptionem  compellere,  et  vulnerare  et  mjuriis  eos  afficere,  necnon 
et  viros  Catholicos  cum  clericis  commorantes  occidere  mutilare  ct  alia  mala  ec- 
clesiis  et  ecclesiasticis  viris  inferre,  maxime  cum  nos  dicti  in(iuisitores  publice 
excommunicaverimus  omncm  hominem  tam  virum  quam  mulierem  tauquam  fau- 
torem  et  deffensorem  hereticorum  qui  eis  consilium  vel  auxilium  aliquod  eis  oc- 
culte  vel  manifeste  prestaret,  et  vicarius  et  capitularii  supradicti  contra  prohibi- 
tionem  nostram  temere  supradictos  hereticos  in  supradictis  malitiis  fovent  niMjui- 
ter  et  sustentant;  et  cum  insuper  ipsi  sacramento  et  constitiitionibus  ecclesie 
teneantur  hereticos  ubicjue  capere  et  totam  terram  eorum  jurisdictioni  subjectam 
a  pravitate  heretica  extirpare,  non  attendentes  quod  scriptura  dicit,  non  est 
grandis  diflferentia  utrum  letum  admittas  vel  differas  quoniam  mortem  languen- 
tibus  probatur  infligere  qui  banc,  cum  possit,  non  excludit  ct  alil)i  dicutur  canone, 
quod  error  cui  non  resistitur  probatur,  et  negligere  cum  possit  arguere  perversos 


570  APPENDIX. 

nihil  aliud  est  quam  fovere,  nee  caret  scrupulo  societatis  occulte  qui  manifesto 
facinori  distulit  ol)viare,  maxime  cum  vicarius  et  capitularii  supradicti  alia  vice 
tanquam  fautores  ct  deffensores  hereticorum  fuerint  excommunicati,  predictos 
vicarium  et  capitularios,  habito  diligent!  consilio  et  tractatu,  assidentibus  nobis 
venerabili  patre  R.  Dei  gratia  episcopo  Tholosano  et  B.  abbate  Mansi  sub  Ver- 
duno,  et  P.  preposito  Sancti  Stephani,  et  P.  priore  ecclesie  beate  Marie  deaurate, 
tanquam  fautores  et  sustentatores  hereticorum  auctoritate  qua  fungimur  excom- 
municationis  vinculo  innodamus. 

Lata  fuit  hec  sententia  publice  in  ecclesia  sancti  Stephani  Tholose,  coram 
multis  viris  religiosis  et  capellanis  parochialium  ecclesiarum  Tholose  et  aliis  viris 
ecclesiasticis,  IX  Kal.  Augusti  anno  Domini  MCCXXXVII. 


II. 

Argument  op  Bernard  Delicieux  before  Philippe  le  Bel, 
Toulouse,  1304. 
(Bib.  Nat.  MSS.,  fonds  latin,  No.  4270,  fol.  138.) 
Dixit  etiam  se  dixisse  tunc  ipse  frater  Bernardus  quod  Deus  fecerat  magnam 
gratiam  patrise  in  adrentu  ipsius  domini  regis,  eo  quod  dictus  frater  Guilhelmus 
Petri,  ordiuis  praedicatorum,  tunc  prior  proviucialis,  prsesentibus  inquisitoribus 
Tolosse  et  Carcassonse  et  multis  aliis  fratribus  ejusdem  ordinis,  dixit  et  confessus 
est  loquens  in  personam  inquisitorum  praedictorum,  in  prsesentia  ipsius  regis  et 
plurium  quam  quingentarum  personarum  in  aula  superiori  ipsius  domini  regis 
existentium,  quod  in  tota  lingua  occitana  non  erant  hseretici  nisi  tantummodo  in 
burgo  Carcassonae,  Albiae  vel  Corduse,  vel  in  circuitu  per  unam  leucam  vel  duas, 
et  quod  illi  non  erant  quadraginta,  et  si  erant  quadraginta  non  erant  quinqua- 
ginta,  et  quod  hoc  dictus  frater  Guilhelmus  dixit  bis  in  praesentia  praedictorum ; 
et  ideo  intulit  tunc  ipse  frater  Bernardus,  ut  dixit,  quod  patria  quae  hactenua 
fuerat  diffamata  testimonio  ipsorum  inquisitorum  ab  infamia  praedicta  in  adventu 
ipsius  domini  regis  fuerat  relevata,  et  sperabat  frater  Bernardus,  ut  dixit  tunc  se 
dixisse,  quod  ex  quo  tunc  secundum  verba  eorum  tota  patria  erat  sana,  excepta 
sex  leucis  et  quinquaginta  personis,  quod  leucae  illae  et  personae  ac  tres  villae  prae- 
dictse  adhuc  invenientur  immuues  a  labe  haeresis  praedicta.  Dixit  etiam  tunc 
se  dixisse,  quod  si  hodie  viverent  beati  Petrus  et  Paulus,  et  contra  eos  impin- 
geretur  quod  haereticos  adorassent,  si  procederetur  contra  eos  super  hujusmodi 
adoratione,  sicut  per  aliquos  inquisitores  istarum  partium  aliquando  contra  mul- 
tos  fuit  processum  nee  pateret  eis  via  deffensionis.  Si  enim  de  fide  interrogaren- 
tur,  responderent  sicut  magistri  et  doctores,  ubi  autem  diceretur  eis  quod  haereti- 
cos adorassent,  et  quaererent  quos  haBreticos,  et  dicerentur  eis  sola  nomina  dicto- 
rum  haereticorum  (quae  quidem  nomina  et  cognomina  multis  conveniunt)  et  ipsi 
beati  Petrus  et  Paulus  dicerent  "  Istos  nunquam  novimus.  Dicatis  nobis  ubi 
sunt  vel  unde  venerunt  et  quo  iverunt,  cujus  linguae,  staturae  aut  conditionis 
erant"  et  nihil  eis  diceretur  per  quod  uotitia  dictorum  haereticorum,  qui  dicuntur 
adorati  haberi  posset :  si  etiam  quaererent  quo  tempore  facta  fuerit  hsec  adoratio, 


APPENDIX.  571 

et  non  diceretur  dies,  mensis  nee  annus:  si  etinm  qufrrerent  noraina  testium  et 
non  darentur  eis,  non  est  qui  possit  exprimere,  ut  dixit  tunc  se  dixiase  ipse  frater 
Bemardus  quod  hi  apostoli  qui  tam  sancti  sunt,  a  tali  macula  coram  hominibus 
se  possent  deffendere,  maxims  cum  si  quis  vellet  eos  deflfendere  statim  impingere- 
tur  quod  erat  fautor  hfereticorum,  sicut  ipse  frater  Bemardus  in  se  ipso  et  dicto 
vicedomino  prohavit. 


III. 
Supplication  of  the  Church  of  Albi  to  the  College  of  Cab- 

DINALS    (1304-5). 

(Archives  de  rHotel-de-ville  d'Albi.— Doat,  XXXIV.  fol.  42.) 
Illustrissimge  Dominationis  Patribus  venerabilibus  Dominis  Cardinalibus 
sacrosanctse  Romanae  ecclesise  sacroque  coetui  eorumdem,  Capitulum  et  Canonici 
ecclesiae  Albienais  et  Capitulum  et  Canonici  ecclesise  Sti.  Salvii  de  Albia,  Abbas- 
que  et  monachi  monasterii  de  Galliaco  Albiensis  diocesis,  et  alii  rcligiosi  quorum 
sigilla  inferius  sunt  appensa,  suarum  sublimitatum  imperiis  subjectionem  debitam 
et  devotam.  Juste  pater  supplicatur  a  filiis  dum  cernunt  fluctus  tumescere  et 
undis  insiliantibus  ventis  et  flantibus  ex  adverse  naufragium  imminere  formidant, 
prsesertim  dum  necessarium  exigente  qualitate  causarum  salus  non  pateat  aut 
auxilium  aliunde.  Verum  nostra  j^atria  quantis  sit  exposita  pra^cipitiis  et  ruinis 
propter  qusestiones  et  dissensiones  quibus  ad  invicem  se  collidunt  patria  et  in- 
quisitores  hagreticae  pravitatis  novit  ille  qui  nihil  ignorat,  et  adeo  excrevit  tur- 
batio  ut  idem  populus  ad  iracundian  concitatus  non  videatur  aliud  anhelare  nisi 
ut  discriminibus  se  committens  dcducat  in  ore  gladii,  nedum  quos  sibi  pntat  ad- 
versarios  sed  et  alios,  ac  ad  talia  se  convertat  qure  non  potcrunt  aliquatenus 
reparari.  Vestrae  igitur  Paternitatis  pedibus  provoluti  humilitcr  supplicanus  ut 
circa  prgemissa  sic  salutifere  et  celeriter  succurratis  quod,  i^rseclusa  via  periculis 
et  ruinis,  patria  restituatur  paci  debitag  et  quieti.  Constet  enim  vobis  quod  dic- 
tus  populus  et  patria  est  catholica  et  fidelis,  quantum  nos  humana  fragilitas  nosso 
sinit,  et  populus  civitatis  Albige  et  patriae  fidem  catholicam  corde  credens  oro 
profitetur  eamdem  ut  sic  pcrveuiat  ad  salutem  et  bonis  operibus  astruit  et  con- 
firmat.  .  .  .  Paternitatem  vestram  conservet  altissimus  ecclesiae  suae  sanctag  per 
tempera  longiora.     (Signed  with  seventeen  seals.) 


ly. 

Bull  of  Clement  V.  in  Favor  of  the  Inquisition. 
(Doat,  XXXIV.  fol.  112.) 
Clemens  episcopus  servus  servorum  Dei  ad  porpetuam  rei  memorinm.  Dudum 
venerabili  fratri  Petro  episcopo  Prcncstino,  tunc  tituli  Sancti  Vitalis,  et  dilecto 
filio  nostro  Berengario  titulo  sanctorum  Nerei  et  Achillei  prosbyteris  cardina- 
libus, per  nostros  sub  certa  forma  littcras  duximus  conimittendum  ut  ipsi  circa 
negotium  inquisitionis  hcretice  pravitatis  in  partibus  Carcassonensi,  Albicnsi  ct 


572  APPENDIX. 

Cordue  super  certis  articulis  seu  dependentibus  ab  eisdem  diligenter  inquireretur 
et  nonnulla  etiam  ordinarent;  qui  auctoritate  litterarum  hujusmodi  quadam  cura 
dictum  officium  ordinasse  noscuntur.  Quia  vero  nostre  intentionis  non  extitit 
nee  existit  ut  occasions  dicte  commissionis  seu  alicujus  mandati  nostri  super  hiia 
Cardinalibus  ipsis  facti,  Inquisitoribus  pravitatis  piedicte  inquirendi  vel  con- 
junctim  vel  divisira  cum  episcopo  seu  episcopis  ordinariis,  aut  sine  ipsis,  prout 
eis  licet  secundum  canonicas  sauctiones  facultas  aliquatenus  restringatur;  Noa 
ordinationem  per  quam  dicti  Cardinales  facultatem  inquirendi  per  se  divisim  in- 
quisitoribus ipsis  restrinxisse  dicuntur  utpote  intention!  nostre  et  juri  contrariam, 
juribus  carere  decernimus  et  nuUatenus  observandara,  ordinatione  ipsorum  Car- 
dinalium  circa  ceteros  alios  articulos  in  omnibus  et  per  omnia  in  suo  robore  du- 
ratura.  Nulli  ergo  omnino  hominum  liceat  banc  paginam  nostre  constitutionia 
infringere,  vel  ei  ausu  temerario  coutraire.  Si  quis  autem  hec  attemptare  pre- 
sumpserit,  indignationem  omnipot.  Dei  et  beatorum  Petri  et  Pauli  apostolorum 
ejus  se  noverit  incursurum.  Datum  Pictavis,  secundo  Idus  Augusti,  Pontificatus 
nostri  anno  tertio.    (12  Aug.  1308.) 


V. 

Brief  of  Clement  V.  Concerning  the  Prisoners  of  Albi.* 
(Doat,  XXXIV.  fol.  89.) 

Venerabili  fratri  Geraldo  episcopo  Albiensi  et  dilectis  filiis  inquisitoribus 
heretice  pravitatis  in  partibus  Albiensibus.  Dudum  venerabili  fratri  nostro  Ber- 
trando  tunc  ejiiscopo  Albiensi  et  inquisitoribus  dictis  nostros  direximus  litteras 
in  hec  verba :  

*  Haurdau  (Bernard  D^licieux,  p.  194)  prints  the  bull  of  1210  (Doat,  XXXII.  fol.  60), 
contained  in  the  above,  but  lias  apparently  overlooked  the  subsequent  and  far  more  sig- 
nificant one.  The  earlier  bull  also  appears  in  T.  V.  p.  40,  of  the  Regestum  Clementis  PP. 
V.  just  issued  in  Rome. 

In  the  same  publication,  received  too  late  for  reference  to  be  made  in  the  proper  place 
(see  above,  p.  78),  there  are  several  letters  throwing  light  on  the  troubles  of  Bernard  de 
Castanet,  Bishop  of  Albi.  In  1307  two  of  his  cathedral  canons,  Sicard  Aleman  and  Ber- 
n;ird  Astruc,  accused  him  before  the  pope  of  numerous  crimes.  Berenger,  Cardinal  of 
SS.  Nereo  and  Acliille,  to  whom  the  matter  was  referred,  after  examining  the  articles  of 
accusation,  suspended  him  from  all  his  functions  during  an  investigation.  "  Executors" 
were  ordered  to  proceed  to  Albi  to  take  testimony,  giving  three  months  to  the  prosecu- 
tion, then  two  to  the  defence,  and  finally  two  more  to  the  prosecution  in  rebuttal.  A 
vicar-general  was  appointed,  July  31,  to  take  charge  of  the  see,  and  three  procurators  to 
collect  its  revenues.  One  of  the  "  executors  "  was  Arnaud  Novelli,  Abbot  of  Fontfroide, 
whom  we  have  seen  (p.  87)  replacing,  by  order  of  Philipe  le  Bel,  the  bishop  in  his  inquisi- 
torial capacity.  Arnaud  was  soon  afterwards  appointed  vice-chancellor  of  the  curia ;  this, 
with  other  impediments,  delayed  the  investigation,  and  on  November  20  two  additional 
months  were  granted  to  the  prosecution.  Nothing  apparently  came  of  the  trial  except 
that  it  probably  quickened  Bernard's  desire  to  abandon  his  thorny  seat.  There  is  a  papal 
brief  of  October  31, 1308,  addressed  to  Bertrand  de  Bordes  as  Bishop  of  Albi,  in  which  Ber- 
nard is  alluded  to  as  late  of  Albi  and  now  of  Puy  (Ibid.  T.  II.  pp.  52, 165 ;  T.  III.  pp.  3, 255). 


APPENDIX.  573 

Clemens  episcopus,  servus  servorum  Dei  venerabili  fratri  Bertrando  episcopo 
Albiensi  et  dilectis  filiis  inquisitoribus  heretice  pravitatis  in  partibus  Albie,  salu- 
tem  et  apostolicam  benedictionem.  Significarunt  nobis  Isarnu3  Colli,  P.  Fransa 
Jo.  de  Porta,  Joannes  Pays,  Petrus  de  Raissaco,  B.  Casas,  G.  Salavert,  Q.  de  Lan- 
das,  Isarnus  de  Cardalhaco,  G.  Borrelli,  cives  Albienses,  quod  ipsi  olim  de  man- 
date venerabilis  fratris  B.  Aniciensis,  tunc  Albiensis,  episcopi  et  inquisitoris  sen 
inquisitorum  qui  erant  tunc  in  partibus  illis,  occasioue  crimiuis  hereseos,  fuerint 
carceri  mancipati,  et  jam  per  octo  annos  et  amplius,  tam  Albie  quam  Carcassone, 
diu  carceris  angustias  sustulerunt,  sicut  adhuc  sustinent,  quamvis  nulk  super  hoc 
facta  fuerit  condempnatio  de  eisdem ;  cum  autem  ex  parte  dictorum  civiura  plu- 
ries  fuerimus  cum  instantia  requisiti,  ut  ad  condempnationcra  vel  absolutionem 
eorumdem,  prout  jus  exigit  faceremus  procedi:  Nos  volentes  quod  circa  illos 
vestri  officii  debitum  exequamini,  sicut  decet,  discretioni  vestre  per  Apostolica 
scripta  mandamus,  quatenus  apud  Albiam  tu  frater  episcope  per  te  vel  per 
alium  seu  alios  idoneos,  vos  vero  inquisitor  vel  inquisitores  prefati,  personaliter 
predictos  cives  ubicumque  detineantur,  adduci  ad  vestram  presentiam  sub  fid  a 
custodia  facientes,  in  eodem  negotio  quibuscumque  processibus  factis  seu  incho- 
atis  per  venerabiles  fratres  Leonardum  Albanensem,  nunc  Prenestinum  tunc  tituli 
S.  Vitalis  et  Berengarium  Tusculanum  episcopum,  tunc  tituli  sanctorum  Nerei 
et  Achillei,  et  dilectos  filios  nostros  Johannem  tituli  sanctorum  Marcellini  et 
Petri  presbyteros  ac  Richardum  sancti  Eustachii  diaconum  Cardinales,  seu  per 
dilectum  filium  Arnaldum  abbatem  Fontisfrigidi  Cisterciensis  ordinis,  Narbo- 
nensis  diocesis,  nunc  Sancte  Romane  Ecclesie  Vicecancellarium  seu  alios  quos- 
cumque,  commissionum  vigore  per  nos  vel  per  felicis  recordationis  Benedictum 
papam  undecimum  predecessorem  nostrum  super  facto  heresis  dictos  cives  tan- 
gente  factarum,  ab  subrogatioue  prefati  abbatis  et  predicti  Albiensis  episcopi 
facta,  nequaquam  obstantibus,  in  eodem  negotio  solum  Deum  habentes  pre  ocu- 
lis,  ad  inquirendum  contra  illos  contra  quos  inquisitum  non  est,  et  contra  illos 
etiam  contra  quos  inquisitum  extitit,  sed  non  plene,  diligenter  ac  plenarie  secun- 
dum formam  que  consuevit  in  talibus  observari,  contra  illos  vero  contra  quos 
plenarie  inquisitum  est,  et  contra  predictos  alios  cum  plene  fuorit  inquisitum,  ad 
sententiam  ratione  previa  procedatis,  et  alias  contra  illos  vestri  officii  debitum 
exequamini,  prout  fuerit  rationis,  communicato  tamen  processu  prius  et  inqui- 
sitione  predictis  prefatis  Prenestino  et  Tusculano  episcopis,  eoruin  consiliis  in- 
hereutes ;  per  hoc  tamen  quoad  alios  ordinationi  facte  dudum  de  mandate  nostro, 
tam  Carcassone  quam  Albie  per  dictos  Prenest.  et  Tuscul.  episcopos  tunc,  ut 
predicitur,  presbyteros  Cardin.  ex  commissione  seu  commissionibus  tam  per  nos 
quam  per  predecessorem  nostrum  factis  predictis  quibuscumque  aliis  Cardinal- 
ibus,  et  processibus  habitis  per  eosdem  super  facto  hominum  illorum  de  Albia  et 
de  diocesi  Albiensi,  contra  quos  per  dictum  Bernardura  Anicieusem  tunc  Albi- 
ensem  episcopum,  et  inquisitorem  seu  inquisitores  predictos,  condempnationis 
sententia  lata  fuit,  nullatenus  volumus  prejudicium  gcnerari.  Datum  Avenione, 
sexto  Idus  Februarii  pontificatus  nostro  anno  V.  (8  Feb.  1310). 

Verum  sicut  accepimus  presentatis  prefato  episcopo  et  inquisitoril)Us  litteris 
supradictis,  et  quibusdara  diceutibus  quod  dicte  littere  fueraut  a  nobis  Bubrep- 


574  APPENDIX. 

ticie  impetrate,  pro  eo  videlicet  quod  aliqui  ex  dictis  civibus  ante  tempus  date 
litterarum  ipsarum  decesserant,  reliqui  vero  ipso  tempore  in  carcere  permanebant, 
et  sic  predicta  non  potuerunt  iiitiraasse,  ct  in  prefato  negotio  hue  usque  procedere 
neglexeraut.  Nos  itaque  nolentes  quod  propter  hoc  justitia  retardetur,  discre- 
tioni  vestre  per  apostolica  mandamus,  quatenus  premissis  non  obstantibus,  nee 
obstante  etiam  quod  aliqui  de  predictis  querelantibus  non  sint  cives  Albie,  licet 
sint  de  diocesi  Albie,  nee  si  aliquem  de  predictis  mori  contingat,  vel  ante  deces- 
siaset  quam  inquirere  inchoaveritis  vel  inchoavissetis,  vel  post  eoruradem  mor- 
tem, in  aliquo  non  obstante,  tarn  de  mortuis  quam  de  vivis  inquirere,  et  in  eodem 
negotio  procedere  minime  postponatis,  juxta  predictarum  nostrarum  tenorem 
litterarum.  Quod  si  forsan  vos  filii  inquisitores,  his  nolueritis,  aut  non  potueritia, 
aut  non  curaveritis  interesse,  tu  frater  episcope,  solus  per  te  vel  per  alium  seu 
alios  in  negotio  eodem  procedas,  juxta  litterarum  contiuentiam  earumdem. 


VL 

"Withdrawal  of  Security  from  Citizens  of  Albi. 
(Archives  de  I'lnquisition  de  Carcassonne. — Doat,  XXXII.  fol.  138.) 
Joannes  episcopus  servus  servorum  Dei  dilectis  filiis  inquisitoribus  hsereticae 
pravitatis  in  partibus  Carcassonae  constitutis  salutem  et  apostolicam  benedic- 
tionem.     Ut  commissum  vobis  negotium  Catholicae  fidei  autore  Domino  pros- 
peretur  in  vestris  manibus  libenter  apostolicse  soUicitudinis  partes  apponimus  et 
quaeque  obstantia  submovemus.     Olim   quidem  felicis  recordationis  Clement! 
papse  quinto  prsedecessori  nostro  pro  parte  quorumdam  hominum  de  partibus 
Carcassonae  suggest©  quod  inquisitores  pravitatis  hsereticae  illarum  partium  qui 
tunc  erant  et  pro  tempore  fuerant  multa  illis  gravamina  et  injurias  irrogarunt, 
iniquos  contra  eos  et  alios  illarum  partium  processus  contra  justitiam  facientes, 
idem  praedecessor  liujusmodi  suggestionibus  aurem  accommodans,  bonae  memo- 
riae Petro  episcopo  Proenestinensi  tunc  tituli  Sancti  Vitalis  et  venerabili  fratri 
nostro  Berengario  episcopo  Tusculanensi,  tunc  tituli  SS.  Nerei  et  Achillei  pres- 
biteris  cardinalibus  qui  partium  illarum  notitiam  habebant  et  per  partes  illas 
transitum  facere  tunc  habebant,  suis  dedit  litteris  in  mandatis  ut  de  praemissis 
suggestionibus  et  aliis  incidentibus  se  plenius  informarent,  et  nihilominus  in- 
terim personis  prosequentibus  negotium  memoratum  de  securitate  idonea,  pen- 
dente dicto  negotio,  auctoritate  apostolica  providerent  nee  permitterent  eos  per 
eosdem  inquisitores  aliquatenus  molestari;  prsefati  quoque  cardinales  hujusmodi 
commissionis  praetextu  Aymerico  de  Castro  burgensi  Carcassonae  et  quibusdam 
aliis  tunc  negotium  prosequentibus  supradictum  securitatem  hujusmodi,  pendente 
dicto  negotio,  apostolica  auctoritate  praestantes,  illos  sub  sua  protectione  et  sedis 
apostolicse  receperunt ;  quam  receptionem  idem  praedecessor  noster  ratam  habens 
et  gratam  mandavit  illam  inviolabiliter  observari,  eisdem  inquisitoribus  distric- 
tius  inhibendo  ne  contra  praefatum  Aymericum  et  alios  oflBcii  eorum  praetextu 
procederent  quoquomodo,  donee  prajfatum  negotium  esset  per  sedem  apostolicam 
terminatum  et  a  sede  ipsa  aliud  reciperent  in  mandatis.   Quia  vero  praefati  Aymer- 


APPENDIX.  575 

icus  et  alii  circa  proposita  et  objccta  per  eos  ulteriua  coram  praedecessore  praefato 
ac  etiam  coram  nobis  negotium  ipaum  prosequi  neglexerunt  et  quasi  negligunt, 
prsefata  protectione  securi,  nos  nolentes  sicut  etiam  non  debemus  propterea  ve- 
strum  officium  impediri,  securitatem  ipsam  penitus  revocantes  discretioni  vestrae 
per  apostolica  scripta  maudamus  quutinus  contra  eumdem  Ayraericum  et  alios  in 
decreta  vobis  provincia,  Deum  et  justitiara  habendo  prse  oculis,  procedentes,  non 
obstantibus  securitate  prsedicta  ct  aliis  securitatibus,  protectionibus,  confirma- 
tionibus,  ordinationibus,  et  inhibitionibus  quibuscumque  dicti  prajdecessoris  aut 
aliorum  quorumlibet,  juxta  foruiam  vobis  traditam  ac  canonicas  sanctiones  et 
de  peritorum  consilio  officii  vestri  debitum  curetis  exequi  diligenter.  Datum 
Avenione,  tertio  Kalendas  Aprilis,  pontificatus  nostri  anno  secundo  (30  Mart. 
1318). 

VII. 

Exequatur  of  an  Inquisitor  for  Champagnb. 
(Archives  de  I'lnquisition  de  Carcassonne. — Doat,  XXXII.  fol.  127.) 
Philippus  regis  Francife  primogenitus  Dei  gratia  rex  Navarrae,  Campania 
et  Briae  comes  palatinus  dilectis  et  fidelibus  suis  universis  baillivis,  castellanis, 
vasallis,  praepositis,  communitatibus  villarura  et  earura  rectoribus,  cseterisque 
communia  offlcia  gerentibus  in  nostris  comitatibus  Campanise  et  Briae,  ad  quos 
prseseutes  litterfe  pervenerint  salutem  et  dilectionem.  Tenore  prajscntium  bovis 
districte  prsecipiendo  mandamus,  quatenus  dilecto  fratri  Guillelmo  AUi^siodo- 
rensi  ordinis  fratrum  prsedicatorum  pra;seiitium  exhibitori  domini  Pap?e  inquisi- 
tor! haereticorum  ac  perfidorum  Judajorum  in  regno  Franciae  sine  mora  ct  qualibet 
difficultate  plenarie  obediatis,  sicut  vobis  in  citando,  capiendo,  detinendo,  ad  eoa 
mittendo  seu  etiam  ducendo  et  puniendo  tam  Christianos  quam  Judaeos,  quos 
idem  frater  inquisitor  invenerit  culpabiles  contra  statuta  ecclesiie  et  fidem  Domini 
nostri  Jesu  Cbristi,  ipsum  nihilominus  familiam  et  res  ipsius  custodicntcs  et  de- 
fendientes  sicut  nos  et  fiimiliam  et  res  nostras.  In  cujus  rei  testimonium  proesen- 
tibus  litteris  nostrum  fecimus  apponi  sigillum.  Actum  et  datum  Parisius,  die 
Dominica  in  crastino  Sancti  Matthiae  apostoli,  anno  Domini  MCC.  octuagesimo 
quarto,  mense  Februarii  (35  Feb.  1285). 


YIII. 

Sbntence  of  Marguerite  la  Porete. 
(Archives  nationales  de  France.  —  J.  428,  No.  15.) 
In  Christi  nomine  amen.  Anno  cjusdem  MCCC  decimo,  indictione  octava, 
die  dominica  post  Ascensionem  Domini  (31  Maii),  pontificatus  bcatissimi  patris 
domini  C.  divina  providentia  Pape  quinti  anno  quinto,  in  Oravia  Parisius,  facta 
ibidem  congregatione  soUempni,  assisteutibus  mihi  rovcrciulo  in  Cliristo  jiatrL" 
domino  Parisicnsi  episcopo,  magistris  Joliaunc  de  Frogerio  official!  Parisien«i, 
C.  de  Chenat,  Jobanne  de  Domnomartino,  Xavcrio  de  Charmoia,  Stephano  de 


576  APPENDIX. 

Bercondicuria,  fratribiis  Martino  dc  Abbatisvilla  baclialario  in  theologia,  Nico- 
lao  cle  Avessiaco  ordinis  predicatoriun,  Joluinne  Marchandi  preposito  Parisieusi, 
G.  de  Cheques  et  pluribus  aliis  ad  hoc  specialiter  evocatis,  presentibus  etiam 
pluribus  processionibus  ville  Parisius  et  populi  naultitudine  copiosa,  et  me  nota- 
rio  publico  infrascripto,  religiosus  vir  et  honestus  frater  G.  de  Parisius,  ordinis 
predicatorum,  inquisitor  heretice  pravitatis  in  regno  Francie  auctoritate  apos- 
tolica  deputatus  in  scriptis  tulit  sententias  infrascriptas  sub  hac  forma: 

In  nomine  Patris  et  Filii  et  Sjnritus  Sancti  amen.  Quia  nobis  fratri  Guillelmo 
de  Parisius  ordinis  predicatorum  inquisitori  heretice  pravitatis  in  regno  Francie 
auctoritate  apostolica  deputato,  constat  et  constitit  evidentibus  argumentis  te, 
Margaritam  de  Hannonia  dictam  Peretc,  super  labe  heretice  pravitatis  vehemen- 
ter  esse  suspectam,  propter  quod  citari  te  fecimus  ut  compareas  in  judicio  coram 
nobis,  in  quo  existens  personaliter  a  nobis  ortata  pluries  canonice  et  legitime  ut 
coram  nobis  juramentum  prestares  de  plena  pura  et  Integra  veritate  dicenda  de  te 
et  aliis  super  hiis  que  ad  nobis  commissum  inquisitionis  officium  pertinere  noscun- 
tur,  que  facere  contempsisti,  licet  a  nobis  fueris  pluries  super  hoc  et  locis  pluribus 
requisita,  in  hiis  fuisti  semper  coutumax  et  rebellis,  pro  quibus  contumaciis  et  re- 
bellionibus  evidentibus  et  notoriis  hoc  exigentibus  de  multorum  peritorum  con- 
silio,  in  te  sic  rebellem  et  contumacem  sententiam  majoris  excoramunicationis 
tulimus  et  in  scriptis,  quam,  licet  te  notificata  fuisset,  post  notificationem  predictam 
fere  per  annum  et  dimidium  in  tue  salutis  disjjendium  sustinuisti  animo  pertinaci, 
licet  tibi  pluries  obtulerimus  nos  tibi  absolutionis  beneficium  impensuros  secun- 
dum formam  ecclesie  si  hoc  humiliter  postulares,  quod  usque  nunc  petere  contemp- 
sisti nee  jurare  nee  respondere  nobis  super  premissis  hactenus  voluisti,  propter  que 
secundum  sanctiones  canonicas  pro  convicta  et  confessa,  et  pro  lapsa  in  heresim 
seu  pro  heretica  te  habemus  et  habere  debemus :  Porro  dum  tu  Margarita  in  istis 
rebellionibus  obstinata  maneres,  ducti  conscientia  volentes  officii  nobis  commissi 
debitum  exercere  inquisitionem  contra  te  et  processum  fecimus  super  predictis, 
prout  exegit  ordo  vite,  ex  quibus  inquisitione  et  processu  nobis  constitit  evidenter 
quondam  composuisse  te  librum  pestiferum  continentem  heresim  et  errores,  ob 
quam  causam  fuit  dictus  liber  per  bone  niemorie  Guidonem  olim  Cameracensem 
ejjiscopum*  condemnatus  et  de  mandato  ipsius  in  Valencenis  in  tua  combustus 
presentia  publice  et  patenter;  a  quo  episcopo  tibi  fuit  sub  pena  excommunica- 
tionis  expresse  inhibitum  ne  de  cetero  talem  librum  componeres  vel  haberes  aut 
eo  vel  simili  utereris,  addens  et  expresse  ponens  dominus  episcopus  in  quadem 
littera  suo  sigillata  sigillo,  quod  si  de  cetero  libro  utereris  predicto  vel  si  ea  que 
coutinebantur  in  eo  verbo  vel  scripto  de  cetero  attemptares,  te  condempnabat 
tanquam  hereticam  et  relinquebat  justiciandam  justicie  seculari.  Post  vero  dicta 
omnia  dictum  librum  contra  dictam  prohibitionem  pluries  habuisti  et  pluries 
usa  es,  sicut  et  ejus  patet  recognitiouibus  factis  nedum  coram  inquisitore  Lotha- 
ringie  et  coram  reverendo  patre  et  domino,  domino  Johanne  tunc  Cameracensi 
episcopo,  nunc  archiepiscopo  Senonensi,t  dictum  eumdem  librum,  preter  con- 

*  Gui  II.,  Bishop  of  Cambrai  from  1296  to  1305. 

t  Philippe  de  Marigny,  Bishop  of  Cambrai  in  1306,  transferred  to  Sens  in  April,  1810, 
in  time  to  burn  the  Templars  who  retracted  their  confessionB. 


APPENDIX, 


577 


derapnationem  et  combustionem  predictas,  sicut  bonum  et  licitum  coramuni- 
casti  reverendo  patri  domino  Johanni  Cathalonensi  episcopo  et  quibusdam  pcr- 
sonis  aliis,  prout  ex  fidedignorum  juratorum  et  super  hiis  coram  nobis  evidentibus 
testimoniis  nobis  hquet.  Nos  igiter  super  premissis  omnibus  deliberatione  pre- 
habita  diligenti  communicatoque  multorum  peritorum  in  utroque  jure  consilio, 
Deum  et  sancta  evangelia  pre  oculis  habentes,  de  reverendi  patris  et  domini 
Domini  G.  Dei  gratia  Parisiensis  episcopi  consilio  et  assensu,  te  Margaritam 
non  solum  sicut  lapsara  in  heresim  sed  sicut  relapsam  finaliter  condempnamus, 
et  te  relinquimus  justicie  seculari,  rogantcs  earn  ut  citra  mortem  et  membro- 
rum  mutilationem,  tecum  agat  misericorditer  quantum  permictunt  canonice  sanc- 
tiones;  dictum  etiam  librum  tanquam  hereticum  et  erroneum  upote  errores  et 
heresim  continentem,  judicio  magistrorum  in  theologia  Parisius  existentium  et 
de  eorumdem  consilio  finaliter  condempnamus  ac  demum  excommunicari  volumus 
et  comburi ;  universis  et  singulis  habentibus  dictum  librum  precipientes  districte 
et  sub  pena  excommunicationis  quod  infra  instans  festum  Apostolorum  Petri  et 
Pauli  nobis  vel  priori  fratrum  predicatorum  Parisius,  nostro  commissario,  sine 
fraude  reddere  teneantur.  Actum  Parisius  in  Gravia,  presente  prcdicto  patrc 
reverendo  Parisiensi  episcopo,  clero  et  populo  dicte  civitatis  ibidem  sollempniter 
congregato,  Dominica  infra  Ascensionem  Domini,  anno  Domini  MCCC  decimo. 


Consultation  of  Canon  Lawyers  on  the  Case  of  Marguerite 

LA    PORETE,  HELD    MaY    30,  1310, 

Universis  presentes  litteras  inspecturis,  Guillclmus  dictus  Frater  archidiaconus 
Laudonie  in  ecclesia  Sancti  Andree  in  Scocia,  Hugo  de  Bisuncio  canonicus  Pari- 
siensis, Johannes  de  ToUenz  canonicus  Sancti  Quintiui  in  Veromandua,  Henricus 
de  Bitunia  canonicus  Furneusis  et  Petrus  de  Vallibus  curatus  Sancti  Gcrmani 
Altissiodorensis  de  Parisius,  et  etiam  regentes  Parisius  in  decretis,  salutcm  in 
actore  salutis.  Noveritis  virum  venerabilem  devotum  et  discretum  fratrcm  Guil- 
lelmum  de  Parisius  ordinis  predicatorum  inquisitorem  heretice  pravitatis  in 
regno  Francie  auctoritate  sedis  apostolice  deputatum,  inque  processum  qui  sequi- 
tur  nobis  intimasse,  consultationemque  nobis  fecisse  inferius  aunotatam.  Pro- 
cessus equidem  talis  est :  Tempore  cjuo  Margarita  dicta  Porete  suspecta  de  hercsi 
fuit  in  rebellione  et  in  inobedientia,  nolens  respondcre  ncc  jurare  coram  inquisi- 
tore  de  hiis  que  ad  inquisitionis  sibi  commisse  officium  pertinent,  ipse  inquisitor 
contra  cam  nihilominus  inquisivit  et  etiam  depositione  plurium  testium  invcnit 
quod  dicta  Margarita  librum  quemdam  composuerat  continentem  hercscs  ct  er- 
rores qui  de  mandato  reverendi  patris  domiui  Guidonis  condam  Camcraccnsis 
episcopi  publico  et  sollempniter  tauiiuam  talis  fuit  condcnipnatus  et  combustus 
et  per  litteram  dicti  episcopi  fuit  ordinatum  quod  si  talia  sicut  ea  que  contine- 
bantur  in  libro  de  cetero  attemptaret  verbo  vel  scripto  earn  condempnnl)at  et 
relinqucbat  justiciandam  justicie  seculari.  Invcnit  etiam  idem  inquisitor  quod 
ipsa  recognovit  in  judicio  scmcl  coram  inquisitore  Lotiiaringie  ct  scmel  coram 
reverendo  patre  Domino  Philippo  tunc  Camcraccnsi  episcopo,  sc  post  condemp- 
nationem  predictam  librum  dictum  habuisse  et  alios:  invcnit  etiam  idem  in- 
II.— 37 


578  APPENDIX. 

quisitor  quod  dicta  Margarita  dictum  librum  in  suo  consiinili  cosdem  continent 
tem  errores  post  ipsius  libri  condempuationem  reverendo  patri  Domino  Jo.  Dei 
gratia  Cathalaunensi  episcopo  communicavit  ac  nedum  dicto  domino  sed  et 
pluribus  aliia  personis  simplicibus,  begardis  et  aliis  tanquam  bonum.  Consul- 
tatio  autem  ex  predictis  resultans  per  prefatum  inquisitorem  ut  pertactum  est 
nobis  facta  talis  est :  Videlicet,  utrum  in  talibus  dicta  beguina  debeat  relapsa 
judicari?  Nos  autem  fidei  catholice  zelatores,  veritatisque  canonice  professores 
qualescumque  consultationi  predicte  respondentes,  dicimus  quod  ipsa  beguina, 
supposita  veritate  facti  precedentis,  judicanda  est  relapsa  et  merito  relinquenda 
est  curie  seculari.  In  cujus  rei  testimonium  sigilla  nostra  presentibus  apposui- 
mus.  Datum  anno  Domini  MCCC  decimo  sabbato  post  festum  beati  Joannis  ante 
portam  latinam.* 

IX. 

Exequatur  of  an  Inquisitor  issued  by  Philippe  le  Bon  of 

Burgundy. 
(MSS.  Bib.  Nat.,  fonds  Moreau,  444  fol.  10.) 
Philippus  universis  et  singulis  seueschallis,  baillivis,  scultetis,  officiariis  et 
justiciariis  nostris  praesentibus  et  futuris,  et  locatenentibus  eorumdem  per  ducatus 
et  districtus  nostras  infra  dyoceses  Cameracensis  et  Leodiensis  constitutes,  ad 
quos  prsesentes  nostrse  litterse  pervenerint  salutem  et  omne  bonum.  Cum  religio- 
sus  dilectusque  noster  frater  (Henricus)  Kaleyser  sacrae  theologise  professor  or- 
dinis  fratrum  prgedicatorum  inquisitor  hsereticse  pravitatis  per  provincialem  pro- 
vincise  Theotonise  in  prsedictis  Caraeracensi  et  Leodiensi  dyocesibus  auctoritate 
apostolica  specialiter  deputatus  pro  Dei  servitio  et  cultu  seu  exaltatione  sanctae 
fidei  orthodoxse  utque  ipsum  haeresis  crimen  a  dictis  partibus  quibus  presidemus 
si  forsan  alicubi  vigeat  seu  inoleat  valeat  extirpare  ad  loca  seu  partes  nostras  ju- 
risdictioni  subjectas  et  vobis  commissas  declinare  quisquam  habeat  seu  etiam  pro- 
ficisci,  nosque  velut  princeps  catholicus  qui  de  manu  altissimi  multa  bona  vari- 
osque  honores  recognoscimus  recipisse  in  prsedictis  et  aliis  qui  divinum  continuo 
obsequium  complacere  ut  convenit  plurimum  cupiantes  intendimus  ymo  et  volu- 
mus  favorabilem  dare  locum,  ipsumque  inquisitorem  tanquam  Dei  specialem 
ministrum  nostris  prosequi  gratiis  et  favoribus  optamus  ideo  vobis  et  cuilibet 
vestrum  qui  super  hoc  fueritis  requisiti  seu  fuerit  requisitus,  districte  prsecipiendo 


*  In  the  Register  of  Clement  V.,  received  since  the  text  of  this  volume  was  in  type, 
there  is  a  brief  addressed  September  3, 1310,  to  the  Inquisitor  of  Langres  ordering  him  to 
proceed  vigorously  against  the  heretics  of  that  diocese  who  have  been  reported  by  the 
bishop  as  multiplying  so  that,  unless  prompt  measures  are  taken,  grave  injury  to  the  faith 
is  to  be  apprehended.  The  nature  of  the  heresy  is  not  described,  but  it  was  probably  that 
of  the  Brethren  of  the  Free  Sph-it  which  Marguerite  la  Porete  had  been  disseminating 
throughout  that  region. 

The  incident  has  further  interest  as  showing  how  completely  the  French  episcopate 
had  transferred  to  the  Inquisition  its  jurisdiction  over  heresy,  in  spite  of  its  renewed  ac- 
tivity at  the  moment  in  the  affair  of  the  Templars. 


APPENDIX.  579 

mandamns  sub  obtentu  gratiae  nostrge  quatenns  dictum  fratrem  Henricum  in- 
quisitorem  quotiescumque  ad  exercendum  dictum  officium  ad  dicta  loca  seu 
partes  vobis  commissas  contigerit  se  transferre  et  supra  praedictis  sreculare  bra- 
chium  invocando  vestrum  auxilium  postulare,  eumdem  inquisitorem  favorabiliter 
admittatis,  et  eidem  in  et  supra  prsedictis  saeculare  brachium  invocando  vestrum 
auxilium  impendatis,  capiendo  seu  capi  faciendo  quoscumque  ipse  inquisitor  de- 
bita  informatione  seu  inquisitione  praevia  et  juris  ordine  alias  desuper  observato 
de  memorato  facinore  suspectos  vel  diflfamatos  noverit  et  hsereticos  quosque  vo- 
bis duxerit  nominandos,  et  captos  etiam  detinendo,  et  infra  jurisdictionem  ves- 
tram  ad  locum  de  quo  dictus  inquisitor  vobis  dixerit  dcducendo,  necnon  poena 
debita  plectendo  eosdem  sicut  ipse  decreverit  et  est  fieri  consnetum,  si  videlicet 
quando  et  quotiens  ac  prout  ijise  inquisitor  vos  duxerit  requirendos.  Ut  autem 
inquisitor  praefatus  suum  inquisitionis  officium  securius  et  liberius  exercere  valeat, 
nostro  suflFultus  prsesidio  et  favore,  inquisitorem  eumdem  ipsiusque  socium  ac 
ejus  notarium  et  familiam,  res  et  bona  eorum,  sub  nostris  protectione,  defeusione 
et  salvagardia  speciali  atque  securo  conductu  recepimus  et  recipimus  per  prse- 
sentes,  mandantes  vobis  omnibus  et  singulis  supradictis  ut  vestrum  cuilibet  qua- 
tenus  nostras  protectionem,  defensionem  et  salvagardiam  securumque  conductum 
hujusmodi  dicto  inquisitori  ejusque  socio  ac  notario,  familise,  bonis  et  rebus  eorum 
inviolabiliter  observando,  nuUam  injuriam  nuUumque  dispendium,  gravamen  aut 
dampnum  aliquod  ipsis  inferre  in  personis  ac  bonis  a  quocumque  permittatis, 
quinnymo  provideatis  eisdem  de  securo  transitu  et  salvo  conductu  si  et  prout 
per  dictum  inquisitorem  inde  fueritis  requisite  Datum  in  oppido  nostro  Bruxel- 
lensi  mensis  novembris  die  nona,  anno  Domini  MCCCC  tricesimo  primo. 


X. 

Waldensianism  in  the  Sentences  of  Pieree  Cella. 
(Doat,  XXI.) 

I  select  a  few  of  the  sentences  of  Pierre  Cella  in  1241-2,  illustrat- 
ing the  development  of  Waldensianism  at  that  period,  and  the  relations 
between  it  and  Catharism.  The  sects  were  perfectly  distinct,  but 
frequently  the  people,  in  their  antagonism  to  the  established  Church, 
looked  favorably  on  both,  and  considered  them  equally  as  ^'  bofii  Jiomi- 
nes.''''  It  will  be  borne  in  mind  that,  in  the  language  of  the  Inquisition, 
"  heretic  "  always  means  Catharan.  The  following  cases  are  all  from 
Gourdon  and  Montauban. 

Galterus  Archambaut  vidit  hereticos  pluries  in  diversis  locia,  audivit  predi- 
cationes  eorum,  et  comedit  cum  eis  sepc,  et  adoravit  eos  scpe,  et  pacis  osculum 
more  hereticorum  pluries  recepit  et  interfuit  hereticationil>us  duabus,  ot  addnxit 
Valdenses  ad  hereticos  in  domum  suam,ul)i  disputavcrunt,  ct  condu.xit  lien-tiros, 
et  fuit  depositarius  eorum,  multociens  adoravit  eos  et  comedit  cum  eia,  et  dedit 


580  APPENDIX. 

eis  de  bonis  suis,  et  aiulivit  predicationes  eorum  tociens  quod  non  recordatur,  et 
credebat  quod  esaont  boni  liomines  et  quod  esset  salus  cum  eis,  et  si  moreretur 
vellet  niori  in  manibus  eorum. — Stabit  Constantinopoli  per  quinque  annos,  de 
cruce  et  via  sicut  alii,  et  tenebit  pauperem  quamdiu  vixerit  (fol.  19G-7J. 


B.  Bonaldi  vidit  P.  de  Vallibus  Valdcnsem,  et  audivit  predicationem  ejus,  et. 
credidit  aliquando  quod  non  debet  homo  jurare,  et  in  domo  sua  propria  recepit 
Joset  de  Noguer  hereticum,  et  disputavit  cum  eo,  et  ipse  commendavit  sectam 
Valdensem. — Idem  quod  proxima,  excepta  cruce  (id  est,  Ibit  ad  Podium,  Sanc- 
tum Egidium,  Sanctum  Jacobum,  Sanctum  Salvatorem  de  Asturia,  Sanctum  Mar- 
cialem,  Sanctum  Leonardum,  Sanctum  Dyonisium,  Sanctum  Thomam  Cantuarien- 
sem)  (fol.  201). 

Petrus  de  Verniolo  habuit  hereticos  et  Valdenses  in  fortia  sua,  et  locutus  est 
alteri  eorum,  consuluit  Valdenses  de  infirmitate  sua. — Ibit  ad  Podium,  Sanctum 
Egidium  et  Sanctum  Jacobum  (fol.  202). 

Pana  tociens  recepit  Valdenses  quod  non  recolit,  et  fuit  hospes  Valdensium, 
et  misit  eis  tociens  panem,  vinum,  et  alia  comestibilia  quod  non  nescit  numerum, 
et  fuit  in  domo  sua  facta  disputatio  inter  Valdenses  et  credentes  hereticis,  et  dili- 
gebat  P.  de  Vallibus  tanquam  angelum  Dei : — Sicut  proxima,  excepto  paupere  et 
cruce  (i.  e.  Ibit  ad  Podium,  Sanctum  Egidium,  Sanctum  Salvatorem  de  Asturia, 
Sanctum  Marcialem,  Sanctum  Leonardum,  Sanctum  Dyonisium,  Sanctum  Tho- 
mam Cantuariensem)  (fol.  203). 

Petrona  uxor  Raimundi  Joannis,  adduxit  P.  de  Vallibus  Valdensem  ad  do- 
mum  suam,et  tenuit  per  octo  dies,  et  dedit  ad  comedendum  et  bibendum,  et  audi- 
vit eum  ibi,  et  tenuit  per  tres  septimanas  Geraldam  Valdensem,  et  credebat  quod 
esset  bona  mulier,  et  dedit  el  de  bonis  suis,  et  vidit  hereticos  et  audivit  predica- 
tionem eorum,  et  misit  eis  panem,  vinum,  et  nuces.— Sicut  Huga,  excepta  cruce 
(i.  e.  Ibit  ad  Podium,  ad  Sanctum  Egidium,  Sanctum  Jacobum  et  Sanctum  Salva- 
torem de  Asturia,  Sanctum  Marcialem  Lemovicensem,  Sanctum  Leonardum,  Sanc- 
tum Dyonisium  et  Sanctum  Thomam  Cantuariensem),  et  tenebit  pauperem  per 
annum  (fol.  204). 

G.  de  Pradels  vidit  hereticos,  audivit  predicationem  eorum,  dedit  eis  de 
bonis  suis,  et  pluries  vidit  et  in  diversis  locis  hereticos,  et  credebat  quod  boni 
homines  essent,  pluries  vidit  Valdensem,  et  credidit  quod  bonus  homo  esset,  et 
dedit  ei  ad  comedendum  semel,  et  audivit  predicationem  ejus.— Portabit  crucem 
per  biennium  (fol.  208). 

G.  Ricart  pluries  vidit  hereticos  et  in  diversis  locis  et  sepe  audivit  predica- 
tionem eorum,  et  interfuit  appareilhamento,  recepit  osculum  pacis  ab  eis,  comedit 
cum  eis,  recepit  pluries  eos  in  domum  suam,  dedit  eis  ad  comedendum,  recepit 
ab  eis  forcipes,  dedit  eis  unam  capam,  unam  camisiam,  unam  tunicam,  unam  quar 


APPENDIX.  581 

tam  frumenti,  duxit  Valdenses  ad  hereticos  ad  disputandura  in  die  Pasche  asso- 
ciavit  hereticos,  fuit  depositarius  eorum,  et  multociens  audivit  predicationem 
hereticorum,  credebat  quod  essent  boni  homines,  et,  si  moreretur,  vellet  mori  in 
manibus  eorum,  tociens  adoravit  eos  quod  non  recordatur.— Stabit  Constanti- 
nopoli  per  tres  annos,  de  cruce  et  via  sicut  alii,  et  tenebit  pauperem  quamdiu 
Tixerit  (fol.  208). 

P.  de  Gaulenas  vidit  Valdenses  et  hereticos  et  locutus  est  cum  eis  in  quadam 
navi,  et  cum  audisset  hereses  quas  dicebant,  recessit  ab  eis. — Ibit  ad  Sanctum  Ja- 
cobum  (fol.  230). 

P.  Baco  vidit  Valdenses  multociens  et  dedit  eis  eleemosynas  et  audivit  predi- 
cationem Vaklensium,  et  diligcbat  eos,  et  credebat  quod  essent  boni  homines,  et 
frequenter  dabat  eis  de  suo,  et  interfuit  cene  Valdensium,  et  comedit  de  pane 
benedicto,  vino  et  piscibus  hereticorum  et  accepit  pacem  ab  eis  ;  item  dedit  Val- 
densibus  ad  comedeadum  in  domo  sua;  item  interfuit  disputationi  hereticorum 
et  Valdensium,  et  dedit  eis  duodecim  denarios. — Idem  quod  proximus  (i.  e.  Ibit 
ad  Podium,  Sanctum  Egidium,  Sanctum  Jacobum  et  Sanctum  Thomam)  et  am- 
plius  ad  Sanctum  Dyonisium  (fol.  231). 

P.  R.  Boca  dixit  quod  vidit  multociens  Valdenses  et  in  diversis  locis,  et  etiam 
habuit  eos  in  domo  sua,  et  audivit  ibi  monitiones  eorum ;  item  credebat  quod 
essent  boni  homines ;  item  pluries  venit  ad  hereticos  et  audivit  predicationem 
eorum,  et  alibi  vidit  hereticos  et  accepit  paccm  ab  ipsis  hereticis;  item  tercio 
vidit  hereticos  et  adoravit  eos;  item  quarto  vidit  hereticos  et  audivit  predica- 
tionem eorum  et  adoravit  eos ;  item  recepit  in  portion  suo  hereticum,  et  duxit 
eum  inde  ad  quemdam  locum,  et  dedit  cuidam  hcretico  unam  capam ;  item  cre- 
didit  a  principio  quod  Valdenses  erant  boni  homines,  et  idem  credidit  postea  de 
hereticis. — Stabit  Constantinopoli  tribus  anuis,  de  cruce  et  via  sicut  alii  (fol.  232). 

P.  Lanes  senior  dixit  quod  vidit  Valdenses  et  dedit  eis  eleemosinam,  et  uxor 
sua  dedit  se  Valdensibus  in  morte  et  fuit  sepulta  in  ciniitcrio  eorum,  ipse  tnmen 
abscns  erat,  ut  dixit,  et  vidit  alibi  Valdenses. — Ibit  ad  Podium,  Sanctum  Egidium 
et  Sanctum  Jacobum  (fol.  232). 

Johannes  Tosct  dixit  quod  multociens  vidit  liercticos  et  in  diversis  locis,  et 
fuit  presens  quando  quidam  fecit  se  hereticum  apud  Kaljastcns,  et  tunc  vidit 
multos  hereticos  ibi ;  item  audivit  predicationem  hereticorum  et  adoravit  eos 
bis;  item  dedit  sorori  sue  heretice  pluries  denarios;  item  associnvit  hereticos; 
item  associavit  avunculum  suum  quando  fecit  se  hereticum  apud  Villamur;  item 
consuluit  Valdensibus  pro  infirmitate  sua,  et  credidit  quod  essent  boni  homines. 
— Stabit  tribus  annis  Constantinoi^oli,  de  cruce  et  via  sicut  alii  (fol.  232-33). 

Ramon  Carbonel  vidit  multos  Valdenses  et  in  diversis  locis,  et  induxit  fra- 
trem  suum  ut  solveret  solidos  ducentos  Valdensibus  legatos  eis ;  item,  interfuit 


582  APPENDIX. 

disputationi  Valdensium  et  hereticorum ;  item,  iuterfuit  cene  Valdensium  et 
comedit  dc  j^ane  et  piscibus  benedictis  ab  eis,  de  vino  bibit,  et  audivit  predica- 
tionem  eorum. — Ibit  ad  Podium,  Sanctum  Egidium,  Sanctum  Jacobum,  Sanctum 
Dyonisium  et  Sanctum  Thomam  (fol.  234). 

» 
Jacobus  Carbonel  dixit  quod  frequenter  venit  ad  scholas  Valdensium  et  lege- 

bat  cum  eis ;  item  iuterfuit  disputationi  hereticorum  et  Valdensium  et  comedit 
de  pane  et  pisce  benedictis  ab  eis,  de  vino  bibit,  et  tunc  erat  duodecim  anno- 
rum  vel  circa,  et  credidit  quod  Valdenses  erant  boni  homines  usque  ad  tempus 
quo  ecclesia  condemnavit  eos. — Ibit  ad  Podium,  Sanctum  Egidium,  Sanctum  Ja- 
cobum et  Sanctum  Dyonisium  (fol.  234). 

Bartholomeus  de  Posaca  dixit  quod  adduxit  quemdam  Valdensem  ad  uxorem 
suam  infirmam,  qui  curam  illius  egit,  et  audivit  predicationem  Valdensium,  et 
ex  tunc  dilexit  eos,  et  venerunt  pluries  ad  domum  ejus,  et  faciebat  eis  eleemosi- 
nas  dando  eis  panem  et  vinum  et  multociens  et  in  diversis  locis  audivit  predica- 
tionem eorum ;  item  interfuit  cene  Valdensium  et  comedit  ut  supra;  item  pluries 
(accepit)  pacem  ab  eis.— Ibit  ad  Podium,  Sanctum  Egidium,  Sanctum  Jacobum 
et  Sanctum  Thomam  (fol.  236). 

Guillelmus  de  Catus  dixit  quod  cum  frater  suus  et  filia  ejus  infirmarentur  ad- 
duxit Valdenses  ad  domum  suam  ut  haberent  curam  eorum ;  item,  audivit  expo- 
sitionem  evangelii  a  quodam  Valdensi ;  item  aliquando  iverunt  Valdenses  ad 
restringendum  dolium  suum  et  tunc  dedit  eis  ad  comedendum;  item  aliquando 
volebat  eis  facere  eleemosinas  sed  nolebant  accipere ;  item  ali(]uaudo  accepit 
pacem  ab  eis  et  audivit  admonitiones  eorum ;  item  credidit  quod  essent  boni 
homines,  et  ea  quae  dicebant  et  faciebant  placebant  ei. — Ibit  ad  Podium,  Sanctum 
Egidium,  Sanctum  Jacobum  et  Sanctum  Dyonisium  (fol.  236). 

P.  Austorcs  audivit  multociens  predicationem  Valdensium  dum  predicarent 
publice  in  viis ;  item  quidam  apportavit  sibi  de  pane  pisceque  benedicto  a  Val- 
densibus  et  comedit;  item  credidit  quod  essent  boni  homines  et  quod  homo 
posset  salvari  cum  ipsis ;  item  dixit  quod  postquam  audivit  quod  ecclesia  con- 
damnaverat  eos  non  dilexit  eos.— Ibit  ad  Podium,  Sanctum  Egidium  et  Sanctum 
Jacobum  (fol.  237-8). 

Domina  de  Coutas  vidit  Valdenses  publice  predicantes,  et  dabat  eis  eleemo- 
sinas, et  venit  ad  domum  in  qua  manebaut  et  audivit  predicationem  eorum,  et 
multociens  ivit  ad  eos  pro  quodam  infirmo ;  item  in  die  Parasceves  venit  bis  ad 
Valdenses  et  audivit  predicationem  eorum,  et  confessa  fuit  Valdensi  cuidam  pec- 
cata  sua,  et  accepit  penitentiam  a  Valdense;  item  credebat  quod  essent  boni 
homines ;  item  vidit  hereticos  et  comedit  cum  eis  cerasa ;  et  dicebatur  quod  esset 
reconciliata ;  item  vidit  alibi  pluries  hereticos ;  item  comedit  de  pane  signato  a 
Valdensibus. — Idem  quod  proxima  excepta  cruce  (i.  e.  Ibit  ad  Podium,  Sanctum 
Egidium,  Sanctum  Jacobum,  Sanctum  Thomam)  (fol.  241). 


APPENDIX.  5g3 

B.  Remon  vidit  Valdenses,  et  audivit  predicationem  eorum  et  credebat  quod 
essent  boni  homines;  item,  ivit  ad  hereticos  volens  tentare  qui  assent  melioree, 
Valdenses  vel  heretici,  et  ibi  audivit  predicationem  eorum ;  item  alibi  locutus 
eat  cum  hereticis,  et  adoravit  eos  postquam  fuerat  confessus  quedam  de  predictis 
fratri  Guillelmo  de  Belvuis ;  item  adduxit  sororem  suam  hereticaUun  a  Tholosa 
ustjue  ad  Montemalbanum,  et  conduxiteam  et  alias  hereticas  usque  ad  quemdam 
mausum ;  item  venit  ad  ipsas  et  jjortavit  eis  piscem  et  bibit  cum  eis ;  item  roga- 
vit  quemdam  quod  reciperet  illas  hereticas  in  manso  suo,  quod  et  fecit,  et  pro- 
misit  ei  quinquaginta  solidos ;  item,  alia  vice  comedit  cum  hereticis ;  item  fecit 
donum  dictis  hereticis  et  audivit  predicationem  eorum  et  comedit  cum  eis ;  item, 
apportavit  hereticis  fructus;  item,  fecit  tunicam  et  capam  sorori  sue  lieretice; 
item,  vidit  hereticos  et  credebat  quod  essent  boni  homines  et  haberent  bonam  fidem, 
et  comedit  de  pane  signato  ab  eis ;  item,  disputavit  cum  quodam  de  fide  hereti- 
corum  et  Valdensium,  et  approbavit  fidem  hereticorum. — Stabit  Constantinopoli 
tribus  annis,  de  cruce  et  via  sicut  alii  (fol.  242). 

G.  Macips  vidit  Valdenses  qui  habuerunt  curam  ejus  in  infirmitate  sua,  et 
pluries  venerunt  ad  domura  ipsius  et  audivit  admonitiones  eorum,  et  dedit  eis 
pluries  eleemosinas,  et  credebat  quod  essent  boni  homines;  item,  posuit  fidejus- 
sorem  quemdam  hereticum  pro  co  pro  quindecim  solidis;  item,  vidit  hereticos 
et  audivit  admonitionem  eorum ;  item,  vidit  hereticos  et  audivit  predicationem 
eorum,  et  promisit  cuidam  heretico  servitium  suum. — Ibit  ad  Podium,  Sanctum 
Egidium,  Sanctum  Jacobum,  Sanctum  Salvatorem,  Sanctum  Dyonisium  et  Sanc- 
tum Thomam  (fol.  246). 

Guillelmus  Laurencii  vidit  hereticos  predicantes,  et  interfuit  disputationi  he- 
reticorum et  Valdensium,  et  fecit  sibi  fieri  emplastrum  a  Valdensibus. — Ibit  ad 
Podium,  Egidium  et  Sanctum  Jacobum  (fol.  250). 

J.  Austorcs  vidit  hereticos  multociens  et  adoravit  eos  multociens,  et  audivit 
predicationem  eorum  multociens,  et  comedit  de  pane  benedicto  ab  hereticis  et 
de  nucibus ;  item  vidit  hereticos  alibi ;  item  dixit  quod  multociens  vidit  et  in 
diversis  locis  et  temporibus,  et  quotiens  videbat  hereticos  adorabat  eos  semel  • 
item,  vidit  Valdenses  et  audivit  predicationem  eorum  multociens,  et  dedit  eis 
panem  et  vinum  multociens,  et  credebat  quod  essent  Ijoni  homines. — Stubit  Con- 
stantinopoli tribus  annis,  de  cruce  et  via  sicut  alii  (fol.  256). 

A.  Capra  dixit  quod  multociens  duxit  quemdam  Valdensem  ad  domum  suam 
pro  infirmitate  sue  uxoris  et  dedit  Valdensibus  multociens  panem  et  vinum  et 
carnes ;  item,  dixit  quod  portavit  panem  et  piscem  Valdensilnis  ad  domuin  suam ; 
item,  dixit  quod  audivit  predicationem  Valdensium ;  item,  dixit  se  audivisse 
predicationem  eorum  in  platea  multociens;  item,  in  die  Pasche  dedit  ValdLnsi- 
bus  carnes  et  comedit  de  cena  Valdensium.— Ibit  ad  Podium,  buuctum  Egidium, 
Sanctum  Jacobum  et  Sanctum  Thomam  (fol.  257> 


584  APPENDIX. 

B.  Clavelz  vidit  Valdenses  et  audivit  predicationem  eorum  in  plateis  et  inter- 
fuit  cene  Valdensium  et  cenavit  cum  eis  in  die  Jovis  cene,  et  audivit  ibi  predica- 
tionem eorum,  et  dedit  eis  multociens  panem  et  vinum,  et  credebat  quod  essent 
boni  homines. — Ibit  ad  Podium,  Sanctum  Egidium,  Sanctum  Jacobum  et  Sanc- 
tum Dyonisium  (fol.  258). 


XI. 

Letters  of  Charles  I.  of  Naples. 
1. 

(Archivio  di  Napoli,  Anno  1269,  Reg.  3,  Lettera  A,  fol.  64.) 
Scriptum  est  comitibus,  marchionibus,  baronibus,  potestatis  et  consulibus  civi- 
tatum  et  villarum  comitatibus,  ac  omnibus  aliis  potestatem  et  jurisdictionem 
habentibus  et  aliis  amicis  et  fidelibus  suis  ad  quos  presentes  littere  pervenerint 
salutem  et  omne  boiuiui.  Cum  dilecti  nobis  in  Christo  fratres  predicatores  in 
terris  carissimi  doraini  et  nepotis  nostri  illustris  regis  Francie  inquisitores  here- 
tice  pravitatis  auctoritate  apostolica  deputati  in  Lombardia  et  ad  alias  partes 
ytalie  sane  intelleximus  proficisci  intendant  seu  mittere  nuncios  speciales  ad  ex- 
plorandos  ibi  hereticos  et  alios  jiro  heresi  fugitivos  qui  de  terris  predictis  aufuge- 
rent  et  se  ad  partes  ytalie  transtulerunt  et  pro  ipsis  hereticis  et  fugitivis  ad  loca 
unde  aufugerint  per  se  vel  per  eosdem  nuncios  reducendis,  rogamus  et  requeri- 
mus  quatenus  eisdem  fratribus  vel  predictis  eorum  nuntiis  present! um  portatoribns 
in  exigendis  predictis  vestrum  impendatis  consilium  auxilium  et  favorem  ut  per 
terras  et  potestates  vestras  ipsos  salvo  et  secure  cum  rebus  societatis  et  familia 
suis  conducatis  et  conduci  faciatis  eundo  redeundo  et  morando.  Ad  salvamen- 
tum  et  liberation  em  eorum  efficaciter  intendentes  quocies  sibi  necesse  fuerit  et 
vos  inde  credederint  requirendos.  Datum  apud  urbem  veterem  penultimo  madii 
primae  indictionis.  

2. 
(Anno  1269,  Registro  4,  Lettera  B,  fol.  47.) 
Scriptum  est  universis  justitiariis  secretis  baiulis  judicibus  magistris  juratis 
ceterisque  officialibus  atque  iidelibus  suis  per  regnum  sicilie  constitutis  etc.  Cum 
religiosus  vir  frater  benvenutus  ordinis  Minorum  inquisitor  heretice  pravitatis 
Regebatium  et  Jacobucium  familiares  suos  latores  presentium  pro  capiendis  qui- 
busdam  hereticis  per  diversas  partes  regni  nostri  morantibus  quorum  nomina 
inferius  continentur  mittat  ad  presens  et  petiverit  nostrum  sibi  ad  hoc  favorem 
et  auxilium  exhiberi  fidelitati  tue  precipiendo  mandamus  quatenus  ad  requisi- 
tionem  dictorum  nunciorum  vel  alterius  eorumdem  omnes  hujusmodi  hereticos 
cum  bonis  eorum  omnibus  tarn  stabilibus  quam  mobilibus  seseque  moventibus 
capientes  faciatis  personas  illorum  in  locis  tutis  cum  summa  diligentia  custodiri. 
Bona  vero  ipsorum  ad  opus  nostre  curie  fldeliter  et  soUiciter  conservari.  Atten- 
tius  provisuri  ne  in  hoc  aliquem  adhibeatis  negligeutiam  vel  defectum  sicut  divi- 
nam  et  nostram  iudignationem  cupitis  evitare  et  nihilominus  de  hiis  que  ceperi- 


APPENDIX.  585 

tis  faciatis  fieri  quatuor  publica  consimilia  instrumenta,  quorum  uno  penes  vos 
reteuto  alio  penes  eum  qui  bona  ipsa  custodierit  dimisso,  tercium  ad  cameram 
nostram  et  quartum  ad  magistros  rationales  magne  nostre  curie  destinetis.  Nom- 
ina vero  hereticorum  ipsorum  sunt  hec  (sequuntur  nomina  67).  Datum  in  ob- 
aidione  lucerie  XII.  Augusti  decime  secunde  indictionis. 


3. 
(Anno  1269,  Reg.  6,  Lettera  D,  fol.  185.) 
Earolus  etc.  Berardo  de  Rajona  militi  etc.  Cum  te  ad  justitiariatum  aprutii 
et  comitatus  molisii  pro  inveniendis  et  capiendis  patarenis  hereticis  ac  recepta- 
toribus  et  fautoribus  eorum  specialiter  duximus  destinandum  fidelitati  tue  dis- 
tricte  precipiendo  mandamus  quatenus  ad  partes  illas  etc.  personaliter  conferens 
in  inveniendis  et  capiendis  ipsis  omnem  curam  quam  poteris  et  diligentiam  et 
soUicitudinem  studeas  adhibere,  ita  quod  possis  exinde  in  conspectu  nostre  celsi- 
tudinis  commendabili  merito  apparere.  Nos  enim  scribimus  omnibus  officialibus 
nostris  ceterisque  in  eisdem  partibus  constitutis  ut  super  hiis  celeriter  exequendis 
dent  tibi  consilium  et  auxilium  opportunum.  Datum  Neapoli  XIII.  Decembris 
XIII.  indictionis.  

4. 
(Anno  1270,  Reg.  9,  Lettera  C,  fol.  39.) 
Xiiij  Martii  Neapoli  scriptum  est  Johannutio  de  Pando  magistro  portulano 
et  procuratori  curie  in  principatu  et  terra  laboris  etc.  Quia  ex  insinuatione  fra- 
tris  Mathei  de  Castro  Maris  inquisitoris  in  regno  Sicilie  heretice  pravitatis  intel- 
leximus  quod  idem  frater  Matheus  nuper  invenerit  in  civitate  beneventana  tres 
patarenos,  unum  videlicet  lombardum  nomine  Andream  de  Vivi  Mercato,  alium 
nomine  Judicem  Johannem  de  zeccano,  et  tertium  Thomasium  Russum  nomine 
de  Maula  saracena  quos  judicavit  relapsos  et  tradi  fecit  ignibus  et  comburi,  quo- 
rum bona  omnia  sunt  regie  curie  tanquam  bona  Patarenorum  juste  et  rationabil- 
iter  applicata,  Devotioni  tue  etc.  quatenus  statim  receptis  presentibus  de  bonis 
omnibus  tam  stabilibus  quam  mobilibus  et  semoventibus  ipsorum  Paterenorum 
cum  omni  diligentia  inquirere  studeas,  quibus  inventis  et  captis  debeas  ea  pro 
parte  curie  fideliter  procurare,  faciens  redigi  in  quaterno  uno  transumptum  inqui- 
sitiouis  ipsius  in  quo  quaterno  contineantur  etiam  bona  omnia  que  ceperis,  quan- 
titatem  et  qualitatem  ipsorum  in  quibuscumque  consistant  et  ubi  ac  valorem 
annuum  eorumdem :  quem  quateruum  cum  litteris  tuis  contineutibus  processum 
tuum  totum  quem  in  premissis  hujusmodi  sub  sigillo  tuo  etc.  sine  dilatione  trans- 
mittas,  in  quo  quaterno  similiter  redigi  facias  formam  presentium  litterarum. 
Datum  Neapoli  ut  supra.  

5. 
(Anno  1271,  Reg.  10,  Lettera  B,  fol.  96.) 
Pro  fratre  Trojano  inquisitore  heretice  pravitatis. — Item  scriptum  est  cabel- 
lotia  seu  credentiariis  super  ferro,  pice,  et  sale  Neapolis  ut  cum  scriptum  fiierit  eis 


586  APPENDIX. 

alias  ut  de  pecunia  curie  etc.  fratri  Trojano  inquisitori  heretice  pravitatia  in  jus- 
titiariatu  provincie  tcrre  laboris  et  aprutii  de  proventibus  ferri  picis  et  salis  Ne- 
apolis  ad  requisitiouem  suam  pro  expensis  suis,  alterius  socii  fratis  sui  et  unius 
notarii  et  trium  aliarum  personarum  et  equorum  suorum  pro  mensibua  martii 
aprilis  madii  junii  julii  et  augusti  presentis  XIIII  indictionis  ad  rationem  de  au- 
gustali  uno  per  diem  uncias  auri  XL VII  ponderis  generalis  in  principio  videlicet 
dicti  mensis  martii  deberent  ecclesie  exhibere  etiam  mandatum  est  sub  peua  dupli 
nt  dictam  pecuniam  juxta  continentiam  predictarum  litterarum  eidem  fratri 
Trojano  vel  nuncio  etc.  persolvant.  Datum  ut  supra  (apud  Montem  Flasconem 
XVin  Martii,  XIV  indictionis). 


XII. 

Lbttbes  of  Charles  II.  op  Naples  Ordering  the  Prosecution 

OF  A  Relapsed  Heretic. 

(MSS.  Chioccarelli,  T.  VIII.) 

Scriptum  est  religioso  viro  Fratri  Roberto  de  Sancto  Valentino  Inquisitori 
in  Regno  Siciliae  post  salutera.  Olim  religioso  viro  Fratri  Benedicto  prsedeces- 
sori  tuo  in  eodem  inquisitionis  officio  post  salutem  scripsisse  dicimur  in  hsec 
verba.  Veridica  nuper  accepiraus  relatione  quod  te  ex  officio  tuo  contra  haereti- 
cae  pravitatis  infectos  inquirente  Petrus  de  Bucclauico  ipsius  castri  archipresbyter 
de  pluribus  articulis  contra  fidem  Catholicam  inventus  est  labefactus,  cumque 
satis  expediat  in  contemptse  religionis  vindictam  ad  reprimendum  tarn  damna- 
bile  exemplum  hsereticse  pravitatis  te  satis  insurgere  viribus  ad  celerem  puni- 
tionem  tarn  enormis  criminis  fidelitati  tuae  mandamus  quatenus  statim  receptis 
presentibus  sic  omni  specie  corruptionis  procul  ejecta  in  prsemissis  contra  dictum 
archipresbyterum  tam  fideliter  prosequaris  processum  quod  inde  Deo  placens 
honori  ordinis  tui  deservias  et  apud  nos  qui  dicti  negotii  plenam  habemus  fidem 
et  notitiam  dignas  tibi  laudes  valeas  vindicare.  Datum  apud  Monasterium  Re- 
galis  Vallis  die  10  mensis  Martii  4  Indict  (1306). — Noviter  autem  facta  nobis 
assertio  continebat  quod  memoratus  archipresbyter  ad  vomitum  rediens  in  ejus- 
dem  hsereticaj  pravitatis  laqueum  est  relapsum,  quod  si  veritate  fulcitur  de  tauta 
profecto  obstinatione  turbati  devotionem  tuam  attenta  exhortatione  requirimua 
ut  tam  ex  processu  dicti  praedecessoris  tui  contra  dictum  archipresbyterum  ab 
olim  habito  quam  habendo  per  te  ut  cupimus  denuo  contra  cum  meritis  (?)  sive 
indagine  in  prsedictis  sic  tuse  disciplinae  virga  in  dictum  archipresbyterum  pro- 
inde  desaeviat  aspere  ut  impunitate  non  gaudeat  hostis  fidei  orthodoxse.  Tuque 
propterea  digna  apud  Deura  et  nos  laude  attolaris.  Datum  Neapoli  apud  Bar- 
tholomaeum  de  Capua  militem  Logothetam  et  Prothonotarium  Regni  Siciliae 
anno  Domini  1307  (1308)  die  ultimo  Augusti,  6  Indict.  Regnorum  nostrorum 
anno  24. 


APPENDIX.  587 

XIII. 

Oath  of  the  Doge  of  Venice  in  1249. 

(Archivio  di  Venezia.     Codice  ex  Brera  No.  277.) 

Promissio  Domini  Marini  Mauroceno. 

In  nomine  dei  eterni  amen.    Anno  ab  incarnatione  domini  nostri  Jesu  Christi 

millesimo  ducentesimo  quadragesimo  nono  mense  Junii  die  terciodecimo  intrante 

indictione  septima  Rivoalto,    In  palatio  ducatus  Veneciarum  feliciter  amen.  .  .  . 

Ad  honorem  dei  et  sacrosancte  matris  Ecclesie  et  robur  et  defcnsionem  fidei  ca- 

tholice  studiosi  erimus  cum  cousilio  nostrorum  consiliariorum  vel  maioris  partis 

quod  jirobi  et  discreti  et  catholici  viri  eligantur  et  constituantur  super  inquiren- 

dis  hereticis  in  venecia.    Et  omues  illos  qui  dati  erunt  pro  hereticis  per  dominum 

Patriarchum  Gradensem,  Episcopum  Castellauum  vel  per  alios  episcopos  pro- 

vincie  duchatus  Veneciarum  a  Grado  videlicet  usque  ad  caput  aggeris  comburi 

faciemus  de  consilio  nostrorum  consiliariorum  vel  maioris  partis  ipsorum.  .  .  . 

Ego  Marinus  Maurocenus  Dei  gratia  Dux  manu  mea  subscripsi. 


Capitulare  super  Patarenis  et  Usurariis  (1256). 

(Dal  Registro  intitulato,  Capitolari  di  piii  Magistrati  riformato  nell'  anno  1376. 
Miscellanea  Codici,  No.  133,  p.  121.) 

Item  juro  quod  amodo  usque  ad  unum  annum  et  per  totum  ipsum  annum 
simul  cum  meis  vel  cum  altero  eorum  studiosus  ero  bona  fide  sine  fraude  ad 
inquirendum  et  inveniendum  patarenos  hereticos  et  suspectos  de  heresi  tam  vene- 
tos  quam  forinsccos  in  civitate  Rivoalti  et  si  quem  talem  vel  tales  invenero  secre- 
tum  aput  me  habebo  et  quam  cito  potero  bona  fide  sine  fraude  denunciabo  domi- 
no Duci  et  consiliariis  ejus  vel  aliis  quibus  per  dominum  ducem  et  suum  con- 
silium fuerint  hoc  commissum.  Hec  autem  omnia  observabo  bona  fide  sine 
fraude  remoto  odio  vel  amore  prece  vel  precio,  et  servitium  inde  non  tollam  nee 
faciam  toUi.  Item  attendam  et  observabo  ea  que  continentur  in  capitulari  ma- 
ioris consilii. — Si  autem  secundo  in  eodem  crimine  quis  fuerit  deprcensus  penam 
predictam  incurrat  et  bannizetur  et  expellatur  de  veneciis  si  forinsecus  fuerit 
veuetus  autem  quociens  inventus  fuerit  penam  incurrat  predictam  excepto  quod 
de  veneciis  non  bannizetur  nee  expellatur.  Post  anno  domini  millesimo  ducen- 
tesimo quinquagesimo  quinto  (1256)  indictione  XIIII.  mense  februarii  fuit  hoc 
additum  in  presente  capitulare. 


End  of  Vol.  II. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


lis  84 


REC'D  LD-URt 
LDURLjAt^f 


JUN  2  0  1987 


rr^^tC^r)  to-i 


:n-lff^ 


REC'D  YRL  JUL  2  A '00 


315 


II rii' 


3  1158  00874  3345 


UC  SOUTHFR^J  REGiQN'AL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA       001  370  858 


College 


C1711 
<2. 


.5 


